Question on printing

[wvhunter]

This is probably a dumb question but I'm going to ask anyway.

When I go to print pictures on pre-cut 4x6 photo paper stock no matter what software I use (I have Olympus Camedia, Fuji's FinPix software, HP's Image Zone that came with my printer, or using MS XP photo printing wizard) it will crop the picture to fit. If I say that I don't want the picture cropped then I get a bit of a border the ends of the picture and it doesn't print borderless. To print borderless the software wants to crop the picture. The pictures I'm trying to print are not resized in any way so one would think the aspect ratio should be correct. I have had the same issue when helping a friend with a Kodak Easy Share 500 dye-sub printer. It prints great pictures but crops a bit on the edges. Alot of my pictures are closeups and I don't want the edges cropped. Is there something I can do different or do I just need to remember to leave more space around my pictures when setting them up so that the cropping isn't taking anything but "dead" space?

Thanks for any info.

 

[Lan-Lord]

it sounds like your aspect ratio is not 2/3. (its probably 4/5). In photoshop, there is a crop tool, where you can specify your ratio. Hopefully one of your image softwares has as similar proportional select/crop.

I know on my old camera, you could select whether it was shot in 2/3 or 4/5 mode. you could make a change there if you will primarily print 4x6.

 

[wvhunter]

Ok, thanks for the info. But it creates another question, sorry about that. I have Photoshop 7.0 but have never used it much. So would you have a quick set of instructions on how to use the crop tool to set the ratio at what I would need to print 4x6.

I am using a Fuji FinePix S5100 and can not find a setting to change the ratio but I'm playing with some settings to see if I can find a setting that will give me the 2/3 ratio.

Thanks again, hopefully I won't have to many more questions for you

 

[Lan-Lord]

Sure, no problem with the questions, keep em coming if you have them.

Here is how to crop your photo to a 2/3 proportion using the photoshop selection tool.

1.) open your photo.
2.) select the Rectangular Marquee tool ( the square with the dashed border outline)
3.) when you select that tool, you should get another tool bar across the top. click the drop down and select "Constrained Apect Ratio". Type in 3 for width, 2 for height (if the photo is in portrait orientation, use 2 for width, 3 for height)
4.) Now use the mouse to click and drag on your photo, the area that you want printed.
5.) Now crop using the Image->crop menu options
6.) Now save and print. make sure you dont save over your original

Here is a screen shot of the options described above.

 

[wvhunter]

Thanks I will give that a try.