Question about adding to a photo

Peleng 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye MC In M42 Mount

05/18/2005 10:35:15 AM · #1

I took this picture of our puppy. (from the critiques on the other forum, I know now that I needed to have better light and not use the flash.) I saw another problem though. When I took it, I forgot to allow extra room at the top. When I have our photos processed, they always cut off a little on the sides and top and bottom (is this normal, by the way?). For future reference, is there any way to add to the top of the picture so that when they process it, they won't cut off the top of her head? I have Photoshop Elements 3.0. Thanks!

//photobucket.com/albums/v306/pianomom2003/?action=view¤t=P1010076edited.jpg

Matthew

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

05/18/2005 10:56:25 AM · #2

There are various reasons why printers crop images.

Almost all images are cropped a little, as the printer will normally try and avoid leaving an unexposed portion of the print by erring on the side of caution and printing a very alight crop. You can minimise the risk of this by asking your pringing studio to minimise cropping, or by adding a border yourself (and perhaps getting the image printed larger than you want, and cropping yourself in the old fashioned scissors way.

Print sizes have varying aspect ratios. If you print a picture at 8"x"6" (4:3 aspect ratio), it will be "fatter" than an image printed at 7"x"5" (7:5 aspect ratio) or a 6"x4" (3:2 ratio). Photos also have aspect ratios calculated by looking at the number of pixels on each side of the photo (your photo's is 7:5.25). If your photo's aspect ratio is not equal to that of the print size that you have chosen, your photo must either be squashed (or stretched) into shape, or the bits "hanging over the edge" must be cropped off. Your photo printer may be able to squash or stretch your picture, but that would come at the expense of it being distorted. You may be able to direct him which bits to crop or keep. However, it is better to crop the picture yourself for the print size that you have chosen.

The easiest way of doing this in Photoshop is using the crop tool, and inserting into the settings box at the top of the screen the dimensions of the photo you will be printing (eg width 7, height 5). When you use the crop tool, it will only allow you to select a crop that matches those dimensions. Choose the portion of the picture you want printed and save as a new image - send that to the printers, asking them for no cropping.

If you want to be doubly sure, as suggested above, add a border (which you can cut off yourself with scissors in real life) by choosing border colour as the background colour in PS and enlarging canvas by, say 101% in height and width, keeping your photo in the centre portion.

cpanaioti

Canon EOS-40D

Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM

05/18/2005 10:59:38 AM · #3

Another thing to keep in mind is than when printed the image is edge to edge so in order to make sure there is no unintended border the image is blown up slightly when printed.

To avoid chopping key parts of an image it is best to keep them away from the edges so this process doesn't cut them off.

Sony 24-70mm F4 Vario-Tessar T* FE OSS

05/18/2005 11:11:35 AM · #4

Thanks! :)

Bear_Music

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

05/18/2005 11:52:00 AM · #5

I "float" all my prints on the paper. For example, I print 10 x 12 on 13 x 17 paper, centered. This works very well for matting and framing, plus it leaves ample room on the print for signature and title. The largest image I print on 8 1/2 x 11 paper is about 6x9. Of course, I do my own printing. But if I were using an outside printer I'd just make the image the size i want to see it at, add the appropriate amount of white border by expanding canvas size to match the paper size I want it printed on, and send it off that way. With instructions not to crop, of course. Some shops would automatically crop all the white out, LOL.

Robt.

05/18/2005 03:59:50 PM · #6

Thanks, I'll have to try doing that. I had one picture that I sent in through the internet to the store to have printed and they cut about 1/2 inch off of the side. So I went back, resent it but I LEFT an extra 1/2 in. on the sides to give them room to cut. (There was something that I was trying to have cropped out.) So, what do they do? Did they take off the 1/2 in? Of course not! They left part of what I was trying to crop out still on the picture. lol A little consistancy would've helped.

sabphoto

Samsung Galaxy S8/S8+

05/18/2005 04:07:40 PM · #7

Originally posted by pianomom:

How are you having your images printed...what company or device. I noticed when I would use the digital machines at say WalMart, it would crop the edges. So I now select crop and move the red box around and enlarge it to make sure I get what I want, not what the machines default is. Hope it helps.