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Photography Question 

Denny Medley
 

A question for all the PhotoShop Gurus!


A question for all the PhotoShop guru's out there - I need your help!
I'm having major difficulties resizing images to the proper size for printing. The 8x10's usually aren't a problem, but 5x7 & 4x6 seems to be eluding me! I can get them close, but using the constrain proportions option in the print dialogue, I can never seem to get them to the correct size. My current dilema is for 4x6 prints. When I tell PS to scale to fit media, I usually get something much smaller than what I want.
I consider myself a moderately advanced PS user, but this one's killing me! Anyone have any suggestions?


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January 11, 2003

 
BetterPhotoJim.com - Jim Peak

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  Hi Denny,

Off the top of my head, I would guess that the problem is one of aspect ratio. Your images are probably portionably comparable to 8 x 10 (i.e. and 800 x 1000 pixel would be the same ratio as 8" x 10" but a 800 x 1200 pixel image would be longer... less of a square). So when you try to fit your 800 x 1000 image into a 4" x 6" aspect ration, you will have an inch of dead space on either end.

There is no way around it other than:

a) cropping your image to that is uses all real estate of the paper at the expense of cutting away some of your image, or

b) cutting off the dead ends of your prints.

Hope this helps.


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January 11, 2003

 

Denny Medley
  Jim,
Thanks for the response!
Yes, I think it helps - I normally shoot with my Nikon Coolpix 4500 at the "fine" image quality setting (the highest resolution avail. w/.jpg compression), with an image size of 2272x1704. If I know I want 4x6 prints when I'm shooting a session, would you recommend a smaller image size setting? And, if I shoot at a smaller image size, am I going to lose any quality if I do print at 8x10? I guess I don't quite have the ratio relationship down correctly yet.
Thanks in advance,
Denny


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January 11, 2003

 
BetterPhotoJim.com - Jim Peak

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  Hi Denny,

No problem. There are two different issues at hand:

1) Resolution for max quality. Yes, I would recommend keeping it at as high of a image size as you can, if you want to print. Even 4 x 6 prints will benefit from the larger pixel dimensions.

2) Ratio. This is the relationship between the width of the image and its height. A square has a relationship of 1 to 1 while a retangle might likely have a ratio of 1 to 1 1/2.


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January 11, 2003

 
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