The photo is too big for the 4 x 6 or 6 x 4
So if the photo is too big, obviously it cannot fit. So, something has to
give here. Something "has to give" is called "crop" or remove portions of
the picture so it can fit on 4 x 6 paper size.
Why is this happening?
You have a picture from a digital camera. Look at the pixel dimensions. It
will be something like : 2048 x 1536 pixels. Divide 2048/1536 =1.33. This is
the way digital cameras files are made, 4:3 aspect ratio = 1.33 (unless you
have a Sony cybershot using the 3:2 option or the Canon 300D using the 3:2
aspect ratio, 3/2 = 1.5 and will fit 6 x 4 perfectly since 6/4 = 1.5).
Now you want to print 6 x 4, 6/4 = 1.5.
How can you fit 1.33 in 1.5. You can't. Something has to give. The software
you are using (or if you just use the XP printing wizard) will take your
picture and crop it to fit 6 x 4. You are not happy about this. You don't
get the whole picture, the top and bottom of the picture are cropped out.
You will never get the whole picture, for the simple reason that you can't
fit 1.33 into 1.5. Period.
However, you can purchase some printing software like Qimage (you can try a
free demo here:
http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage/
which will allow you to "Float the crop". This simply means that once you
open the image in the software and double click it to edit, you get a 6 x 4
grid to place over the original image, so you crop exactly what you want out
of your 4:3 image to fit 3:2 aspect ratio of 6 x 4. So, you can make you
crop where you want it.
The same software will give you a second option. If you want "the whole
picture" printed on 6 x 4, it will give it to you. It will fit "the whole
picture" on 6 x 4 but in order to do this you will have to accept white
borders at the top and bottom of the print.
While I have tried to explain in words why you get this cropping, go to the
following site and learn with some graphic examples (and a nice way to crop
if you want to try it for free).
http://ekot.dk/programmer/JPEGCrops/