printing digital photos

[Paul Johnson]

It seems to me that it is impossible to print exactly to an established
size. Say you want prints at 4 x 6 - I get one of the dimensions right but
the other is off. Is this because of aspect ratio being maintained? If so,
how do the commercial printers of ordinary photos always manage to print out
4 x 6 precisely without distortion?
Is there a way to get 4x6 without distortion from digital photos? My photo
albums do not look nice with varying sizes in the plastic slots.
Paul

 

[Pilbs]

It seems to me that it is impossible to print exactly to an established
size. Say you want prints at 4 x 6 - I get one of the dimensions right but
the other is off. Is this because of aspect ratio being maintained? If so,
how do the commercial printers of ordinary photos always manage to print
out
4 x 6 precisely without distortion?
Is there a way to get 4x6 without distortion from digital photos? My photo
albums do not look nice with varying sizes in the plastic slots.
Paul

http://www.jgraff.addr.com/printpix.htm

 

[JeB]

It seems to me that it is impossible to print exactly to an established
size. Say you want prints at 4 x 6 - I get one of the dimensions right but
the other is off. Is this because of aspect ratio being maintained? If so,
how do the commercial printers of ordinary photos always manage to print out
4 x 6 precisely without distortion?
Is there a way to get 4x6 without distortion from digital photos? My photo
albums do not look nice with varying sizes in the plastic slots.

if you don't change the aspect ratio then you are going to have to
crop the image.

 

[Wald]

It seems to me that it is impossible to print exactly to an
established size. Say you want prints at 4 x 6 - I get one of the
dimensions right but the other is off. Is this because of aspect ratio
being maintained?
Yep.

If so, how do the commercial printers of ordinary
photos always manage to print out 4 x 6 precisely without distortion?

They usually crop the digital picture (aspect ratio 3:4) to match the 2:3
aspect ratio. Do the test, compare a real photo to the original digital
picture you have on your computer, there should be missing parts on the
sides.

Is there a way to get 4x6 without distortion from digital photos? My
photo albums do not look nice with varying sizes in the plastic slots.
Paul

There's no other way than to crop the pictures to the correct aspect
ratio.

If you print pictures yourself, have a look at IrfanView, it has various
size setting/aspect ratio options in its print dialogue.

Regards,
Wald

 

[Thorkild Dalsgaard]

It seems to me that it is impossible to print exactly to an established
size. Say you want prints at 4 x 6 - I get one of the dimensions right but
the other is off.

I you choose to crop your pictures,
here is a nice Danish program
http://www.ekot.dk/programmer/JPEGCrops/
JPEGCrops is a Windows program,
created for preparation of a batch of images for printing.
It provides lossless cropping with fixed aspects using jpegtran.

Also IrfanView can be used for Cropping, use
Edit | Create Custom Crop Selection
and select 2:3 or 3:2 ratio.

Regards
Thorkild Dalsgaard

 

[Paul Johnson]

Thanks to everyone for the replies
Paul

I you choose to crop your pictures,
here is a nice Danish program
http://www.ekot.dk/programmer/JPEGCrops/
JPEGCrops is a Windows program,
created for preparation of a batch of images for printing.
It provides lossless cropping with fixed aspects using jpegtran.

Also IrfanView can be used for Cropping, use
Edit | Create Custom Crop Selection
and select 2:3 or 3:2 ratio.

Regards
Thorkild Dalsgaard

 

[Janice]

There's no other way than to crop the pictures to the correct aspect
ratio.

There's no way to do it borderless. You can, however, size the picture
down until the whole thing fits on a 4X6 sheet, with a border around it.
The border will be thinner at the top and bottom than at the sides. If
you've framed your shot just the way you want, this can be preferrable to
cropping.

 

[Fuzzy Logic]

It seems to me that it is impossible to print exactly to an established
size. Say you want prints at 4 x 6 - I get one of the dimensions right
but the other is off. Is this because of aspect ratio being maintained?
If so, how do the commercial printers of ordinary photos always manage
to print out 4 x 6 precisely without distortion?
Is there a way to get 4x6 without distortion from digital photos? My
photo albums do not look nice with varying sizes in the plastic slots.
Paul

Regular film uses a 4x6 (2x3) aspect ratio while digital cameras produce an
aspect ration of 3x4. This means you will either need to crop the image or
live with white borders on your images. You may be able to find a place that
will make digital prints with the correct aspect ratio.

 

[Eric]

Regular film uses a 4x6 (2x3) aspect ratio while digital cameras produce an
aspect ration of 3x4. This means you will either need to crop the image or
live with white borders on your images. You may be able to find a place that
will make digital prints with the correct aspect ratio.

Or, check your camera. My Kodak CX7430 has a setting to take true 2x3
ratio pictures instead. It crops the LCD so I see the correct picture
and, since it's not wasting the pixels, I can fit more pictures on the
memory card.