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Photography Question 

William Yost
 

Picture Sizing


I just purchased a sony P9 digital camera, my first digital. I shoot 1600x1200(fine). When I developed the pictures (4x6) they were all cropped.

QUESTION; is there a program - or how do I size the pictures to the proper size for 4x6 and 5x7, so there is no cropping.
Thank you


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December 11, 2002

 

Scott
  Dear William Y,
I've recently, like so many others, bought a digital camera after 20 years continuing film use.

The problem you have is that your camera takes pictures in a 4X3 ratio, the paper sizes are closer to 3X2. This means to fill the paper one way you either get a big white border on two edges or you lose a portion of your picture. Labs normally give you the white borders, as this way you get the entire scene that you shot.

The way I get different sizes is to crop and resize in Adobe Elements and then write the adjusted file/photo to CD, and then get that printed.

The easiest way to get around the border problem is to get a good quality trimmer and take the excess and distracting borders off. Not very high tec I know but still the best way. You cannot, to my knowledge, change the ratio of your CCD and if you could, you could only do so by not using as many pixels. This would defeat the point of getting the camera, and pixel count that you did.

Hope this helps, regards Scott.


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December 11, 2002

 

William Yost
  Thank you Scott, for responding so quickly. It obviously wasn't the answer I hoped to hear, in our high technology times. I hoped a program would fix all.
thanks again.


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December 11, 2002

 

Chris
  There are digital photo printing services who support the 4x3 ratio. One example is www.photocolor.de/english/index.htm directly on the boarder between Germany and Switzerland.


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December 12, 2002

 

Duane D
  Sizing is a problem for me also. I have discovered that PhotoDeluxe 4 has a resizing ability that allows you pretty complete control of what gets cropped, etc., in common photo sizes up to 8x10. I often send an image there to resize and either finish it there or re-open it in Elements for final work. I have not been able to find an easy way to do this in Elements or elsewhere(?).


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December 12, 2002

 

Karen Maleta
  Hi William,
There is a program out there... very simple, fun, and inexpensive! ($40.00) With just the basics for editing. It is called Jasc Aftershot.

The photo crop option lets you pick whatever size you want the picture to be, and places a template on the photo, so that you can crop it exactly.

Also, many of the online services such as dotphoto, snapfish, photoaccess, etc., will allow you to select a cropping choice for each photo before your images are printed.


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December 13, 2002

 

Diane H. Inskeep
  I, too, have had sizing problems. Resizing can sometimes make the tall thin dancer short and fat... and have finally figured out the following.....Next time, Take the photos with lots of space on all sides of the subjects, which makes the "get in closer" phototip somewhat limited. Also, in Jim's online photoshop for photographers class, we learned about making an oval around the subject, and filling the area outside the oval with white. I used this idea to solve sizing problems... What that does is make the photo looked matted, but retains all of the image. I just rescued several photos of dancers that were tall narrow printed photos (6x10 with white edges next to the images), and was able to adjust to an 8x10 print size for the customer. Hope this makes sense......Diane Inskeep dinskeep@attbi.com


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December 18, 2002

 

David Vasquez
  I know this may sound like a cheating way, but here is one solution that I use. Ofoto.com has a free program called "OfotoNow" that can be used to keep the aspect ratios of pictures right for pictures. It has this information in the HELP file:

The following aspect ratios are standard:

For a 4 x 6" print, your photo should have an aspect ratio of 1:1.5

For a 5 x 7" print, your photo should have an aspect ratio of 1:1.4

For an 8 x 10" print, your photo should have an aspect ratio of 1:1.25

For a Wallet-size print, your photo should have an aspect ratio of 1:1.5

For a 16 x 20 print: Your image should have an aspect ratio of 1:1.25

For a 20 x 30 print: Your image should have an aspect ratio of 1:1.5

The program's cropping tool keeps the aspect ratios accurate. I've had many pictures done by them and other online services using this program to crop photos taken. None have ever come back with the white borders you mentioned.

Again, I hope this helps!


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January 01, 2003

 

Allen Jackson
 
 
  Nixon1
Nixon1
Nixon with Poor framing

Allen Jackson

 
  Nixon2
Nixon2
Nixon with better framing for 4x6

Allen Jackson

 
 
A REAL solution:

Adobe PhotoShop Elements has a "constrain" feature that works very well but is very poorly documented.

With the crop tool selected you'll see options for the width and height in the toolbar -- these are RATIOS, not actual width and height. Set your target size, say 4 x 6, and then draw your crop box, and hit "Commit". Presto.

Good luck...


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May 03, 2003

 

Phil Ramey
  David:
Being new to digital I am now more confused then ever! When you resize an image and select 8X10 for example, you get the highlighted box showing you what will be croped off. But I want the entire image on the print, so you are saying that the free program by OFOTO will do this? I mean, I see what Alen and Karne are saying, just crop the image to the print size, but how do you get the entire image on the print without making it distorted? I am shooting with the F-100 and have the images burned on a disk when I get the processing done at the lab. And I am one of the stupid people that bought Microsoft Digital Image Pro 9.0. (I know, I will go out and get photoshop, but too expensive right now with Christmas and all)...Thanks, Phil


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December 14, 2003

 

David Vasquez
  I'm sorry Phil, that's not what I meant. The Ofoto software will not just put the whole photo on the print. With the print and the photo being two different aspect ratios, you've got to give somewhere. Scott gave the best answer I guess. In order to fill the different aspect ratio of the print, you have to either crop or distort. Think of it like using a picture for your desktop--if the picture is too big, the computer can resize it down so that you can see the whole picture and not just the part that would fill the screen, if its too small it will stretch it to cover up the otherwise unused (by the picture)portion of the desktop. I'm sorry for the confusion. I can't think of a way to make it fit. You can't add something that isn't there to begin with. That's why the print will have the white borders. I've grown accustomed to knowing that I'll probably be cropping to some extent so I try to be careful not to fill the frame completely. Good luck again!


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December 28, 2003

 

Chris Mattoni
  I just downloaded the ofoto.com software and it does what I wanted - make a standard size print! Man, for the cost of Adobe Photoshop, they sure make it hard to do something really simple - size/crop a photo for printing.

Thanks for the thread - really useful.


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January 03, 2004

 
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