Printing Odd Size Images

[SeagullSteve]

I have a number of images that I want to get printed probably 18in on their longest side. My problem is that I nearly always crop the image as I find that the they look better that way so very rarely have something that would fit a standard size. So I have images that would be 18x8.75 or 18x11 etc.

So can I just send the image as is to a commercial printer (ie somewhere like DSCL) and what will i get back, an 18x12 with a white border that I need to trim,, or will they try to fill the frame a crop something off my image?

 

[Craikeybaby]

I'm pretty sure that DSCL will let you choose FIT or FILL.

There are other places that will do custom sizes, mainy fine art printers though.

 

[awp]

have a look at http://loxleycolour.com/ they do a lot of unusual sizes

 

[snappingsam]

You have a couple of options.

The most simple is to "add canvas" in photoshop to take the image up to a standard size - so, in your example, the 18x11, you simply add to the canvas to make it 18x12 - and you can select to add even to each side - or all to one side.

Some labs - like my own, let you select "crop to fit"/"shrink to fit" - use the "shrink to fit" option - and you'll get the biggest possible image without any sutoff.

 

[Alastair]

I usually do odd sizes in Lightroom and add a border (white, black or grey to preference) on export. So if I want to print an image that's 18x10, I'll export using the Mogrify plug-in to a long edge of 5400px (18" @300dpi) and add a top and a bottom border of 300px each (1" @300dpi) and have DSCL print as 18"x12". Doing it this way gives you total control of where the image sits on the page, e.g. if you wanted unequal vertical positioning. For ease of trimming you could put all the border on one side/edge.