BetterPhoto Q&A
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Armando -. Arturo		photo enlarging Wy can't I get my photos enlarged to 8x10 or 11x14 without them covering the entire area of the page. Everything is ok on the horizontal part but my vertical part never gets filled, there is always empty space at the top and bottom. Is it me or the printing machines?. To love this question, log in above March 29, 2010

- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery		Is that vertical part the long side of an 8x10 or the short side of an 8x10? Nobody can tell for sure if you're talking about a vertical picture or horizontal picture. Like saying the house on the left side of the street is actually on the right side if you're coming from the other direction. Your first line of your post says you can't get them without covering the page, which means you want a border around the picture. To love this comment, log in above March 30, 2010

Armando -. Arturo		The 8 is the vertical,the 10 is horizontal. I ask for borderless and I get the full horizontal (10) with gaps at the top and bottom (8). To love this comment, log in above March 30, 2010

- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery		Sounds like you're sending them full frame images and expecting them to crop for you, and they aren't or don't do that. Are you aware of different proportions of a 4x6 image and how it needs to be cropped to fit an 8x10? To love this comment, log in above March 30, 2010

Alan N. Marcus		When we enlarge, we are simply magnifying the original image. Consider that your camera physically makes a rectangular picture. Likely that image is a tiny 16mm height by 24mm length. Converted to inches that's 0.63 inches by 0.945 inches. I might have missed and your camera might make a larger or smaller image but do not miss the key data. This rectangle come to us from ancient times. It is called the Golden Rectangle and most artists gravitate to it. This ratio has been handed down to us by the ancient world of art. Now your camera captures a rectangle with a fixed height to width ratio of 1.5 from the Golden Rectangle. Now when we enlarge we must magnify both dimensions uniformly. If we do not, we get distortion. Such distortion will make picture look weird. Depending on how we distort, people will look tall and thin or fat and short. We do not want this so we magnify (enlarge) uniformly. If we magnify 6 1/2 times (6.5x) we get an enlargement that measures 0.63 x 6.5 = 4 inches by 0.95 x 6.5 = 6 inches (that's 4x6). Note both height and width is multiplied by 6.5. We must use the same multiplier for both dimensions or we get distortion. If must stick with 8 inch height paper we must magnify 12.7 times (12.7X) that's 0.63 x 12.7 = 8 inches by 0.945 x 12.7 = 12. What we get is an 8 x 12. If we must stick to 10 inch lenght paper we must magnify 10.6 times. That's 0.63 x 10.6 = 6.7 inches by 0.945 x 10.6 = 10 inches what we get a 6.7 inch by 10 inch print. Note we did not fill the 8 inch height. If you play with these numbers, you will see that the 8x10 print is a misfit, it doesn't mate up to the current camera format. The 8x10 stems from the early days of papermaking. Seems the Dutch invented the first production line paper making machine. They made one big sheet of paper at a whack. This sheet was cut into many smaller pieces. The idea was to make the cuts a size that reduced paper waste. Several sheets 8x10 inches were produced and this size became a popular as a tablet of drawing paper in England. Sorry if this all sounds like gobbledygook. Alan Marcus To love this comment, log in above March 31, 2010

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