Cropping and printing.

[burleyviking]

Hi all.
so, it’s been years since iv had any pictures printed to go in the old photo album.
but the wife has some app where you can get x amount of free prints done so she uploaded some photos.
now a fair bit of the time I will put the pictures on my laptop or iPad. Then I’ll crop them to get rid of to much background or a tight crop to make a portrait
photo. Half the photos that came today were all missing bits here and there. Tops of heads. Hats. A couple that were square pictures came back in all kinds of a mess. im guessing there is no way round this other than take the picture how want to print it. As in mice and right for a portrait. On only get in what I want/need on other pictures reducing the need to crop afterwards.
thanks.
lee

 

[steve_lyt]

I suspect that in cropping the images, you lost the aspect ratio, so when they were printed, theimage was cropped again when told to fit to page at the printers

 

[admirable]

Here is an old tutorial on cropping etc using Photoshop

 

[Major Eazy]

Hi all.
so, it’s been years since iv had any pictures printed to go in the old photo album.
but the wife has some app where you can get x amount of free prints done so she uploaded some photos.
now a fair bit of the time I will put the pictures on my laptop or iPad. Then I’ll crop them to get rid of to much background or a tight crop to make a portrait
photo. Half the photos that came today were all missing bits here and there. Tops of heads. Hats. A couple that were square pictures came back in all kinds of a mess. im guessing there is no way round this other than take the picture how want to print it. As in mice and right for a portrait. On only get in what I want/need on other pictures reducing the need to crop afterwards.
thanks.
lee

Not totally sure I understand you.

Well. I've found out that if the apps, websites, printing paper for own printer, printing services, etc., all have a set size of their own. For example: Twitter use 1024 x 512, a printing paper or the printing services use 6" x 4" paper, and so on.

What I would do is open Photoshop (you can use any similar photo editing software), set up a new image size matching to their requested size. For example: If I want to post on Twitter, then I set up a blank canvas size of 1024 x 512, or if going to be printed on paper or set to printers, then set a blank canvas size of 6" x 4"

All I have to do is import my own photo into the blank canvas, then resize and move my own photo to fit inside the canvas to my own liking. For example, moving it so that there is space between the top of a person's head and the top edge of the frame. Any part of the image that is outside of the frame will be cropped off anyway. Move and resize to my liking, then save it as JPEG or PNG or whatever format the app, website, or the printer / printing services will accept.

Upload THAT image, not the original image. Since the image I created is of the same size as the app, website, printer, etc., needed, there is no need for them to crop anything. For example, since my image is already 6" x 4" it will just fit into the printing service's 6" x 4" photos.

 

[Nod]

For the square pictures, you'll probably need to drop the image into a blank "picture" so the whole thing is 6x4 (the usual size for the free print offers) but the actual photo is a 4x4 square in the middle of the sheet with a 1" border at top and bottom (or both sides!).