Recommendations for 6x4 NON CROP photo printing

[weybourne]

It's a long time since I had a batch of digital photos printed but as I recall it, I once went to the effort of altering "canvas size" to give white borders and an overall size/ratio same as the print size (the actual images were cropped to varying degrees too - so not all standard size/ratio) - the printing service cropped the white borders off and then cropped the other sides to "fit" the image onto the paper.

 

[Nod]

If you need edge to edge, uncropped images at exactly 6x4, print at home and cut the images out of larger sheets.

 

[Justin Smith]

If you need edge to edge, uncropped images at exactly 6x4, print at home and cut the images out of larger sheets.

When I last printed out pics at home there were two problems :

1 - The quality was not as good as a commercial photo printer's
2 - By the time I'd paid for the decent quality photo paper, and the ink, it was far more expensive !

Besides, printing pout 100 pics at home would take forever.....

 

[Nod]

Not as long as waiting for a set of prints that you're happy with (size wise) to come back!

Getting good home prints is easy and with a decent printer, the quality is up there with commercial printers.

 

[AMcUK]

My guess is their printers automatically decided the light grey border was not content and re-cropped to remove it + printing bleed area resulting in the crop you don't like.
There is next to no human involvement in online printing, that's why its cheap.

If you like how Harrison's print then I'd swallow their price increase- you seem to be spending a lot of time to get a result you don't like.

 

[Justin Smith]

My guess is their printers automatically decided the light grey border was not content and re-cropped to remove it + printing bleed area resulting in the crop you don't like.
There is next to no human involvement in online printing, that's why its cheap.

If you like how Harrison's print then I'd swallow their price increase- you seem to be spending a lot of time to get a result you don't like.

I would agree I am spending an inordinate amount of time, or, hopefully, I have done !
I think I have more or less sorted it now, and the fact I have put the results on here will hopefully help others who also want no crop printing.
I would have swallowed a significant price rise from Harrisons, may be even 50%, which is still a massive rise don't forget. But 150% ? No, that's just taking the ****, it was a matter of the principle even more than the money when it was that high.

>>My guess is their printers automatically decided the light grey border was not content and re-cropped to remove it + printing bleed area resulting in the crop you don't like.<<

Have you any idea what might be a better colour to choose ?

 

[Justin Smith]

I have just had a batch of pics back from Photobox and can confirm their "shrink to fit" option works very well.
I had put a 50 pix border on the images to ensure no cropping (due to "bleed area") but all the pics came back with a significant border showing. I reckon 20 picx would be adequate, and possibly none at all ?

 

[Justin Smith]

I have just had a batch of pics back from Photobox and can confirm their "shrink to fit" option works very well.
I had put a 50 pix border on the images to ensure no cropping (due to "bleed area") but all the pics came back with a significant border showing. I reckon 20 picx would be adequate, and possibly none at all ?

I sent the latest batch in to Photobox with only a 20pix border with no apparent problems, though a comment from AMcUK earlier (that the border was being ignored as having no content) may be true as the edge of the photos seem to correspond almost exactly with the edge of the image (though when I used the 50 pix border mentioned above it was recognised !). Still, putting a 20pix border on using Irfan batch (explained earlier) is easy enough.
I didn't bother with the Irfan 6x4 canvass option as it didn't seem to help and is just a load of extra complication, esp as all portrait pics have to rotated to landscape for that to work properly.
As an aside Photobox print the image name on the back of the pic which is useful, esp if the pics are printed out in date order not name order (and they have been edited into multi pics or whatever at a later date).

So, to conclude, I suspect just sending the images in to Photobox with no added border (but selecting "No Crop Print") may well work fine, but adding a 20 pix border with Irfan is insurance and not that hard anyway.

 

[Justin Smith]

Oh dear.....
As at 2 Aug 24 Photobox no longer offer the no crop / shrink to fit option. I took the trouble to phone them up and the lady said the option was NLA and my not be returning, typical of modern life, why the effin' hell do they have to keep changing stuff (usually for the worse....) ?
Hopefully I have got around it by using the canvas size option in Irfan (as detailed here).

 

[Justin Smith]

The Photobox no crop option still does not appear to be available so I saw no reason to not just use Snapfish, who are cheaper anyway !
I had to fart about putting the pics on the 3:2 canvas (linked to in the post above) and adding a 40pix border, but one has to now do that with Photobox anyway.
Attached is an example of a pic with both.
Incidentally I was shocked by how inaccurate the printing was in my last batch (from Photobox), despite the 40pix border the odd pic still had some cropped off the edge whilst the opposite side had an even bigger white border than the 40pix I had added !

 

[Box Brownie]

FWIW

If you are using your TZ70 it's native aspect ratio(sensor size) is 4:3 meaning as I think you mentioned cropping in post to 3:2 ratio that would (typically ~ subject to the likes of Photobox printers 'honouring' the image size) be printed 6x4 with no faffing.

However, I see in the TZ70 specs that it can be set it to shoot at 3:2 ratio and that would avoid the need to crop in post processing. At least that way you start with the correct ratio to print 6x4........as for whether the printing company would mess it up, that is another matter!

 

[Justin Smith]

FWIW

If you are using your TZ70 it's native aspect ratio(sensor size) is 4:3 meaning as I think you mentioned cropping in post to 3:2 ratio that would (typically ~ subject to the likes of Photobox printers 'honouring' the image size) be printed 6x4 with no faffing.

However, I see in the TZ70 specs that it can be set it to shoot at 3:2 ratio and that would avoid the need to crop in post processing. At least that way you start with the correct ratio to print 6x4........as for whether the printing company would mess it up, that is another matter!

I always use the TZ on 3:2, except when I forget !
None 3:2 pics or multi pics (other than 4 pics in one which obviously retains the 3:2 AR) do need the "No crop" (or use of a 3:2 canvas) facility.
But even 3:2 (=6x4) images are frequently cropped a bit on the edges, hence the need for a 40pix border.

TBH I cannot see why they crop the image anyway, surely the default should be full image ? It's even worse that the Windows print dialog setting is "Fit picture to frame", i.e. cropping the picture and the default (to my knowledge) cannot be altered. Many people have asked on various forums how to get rid of that accursed tick in the print dialogue, but nobody has come up with an answer !

 

[Box Brownie]

I wonder how well those self service 'kiosk' machines in the likes of Boots handle the files?

 

[Justin Smith]

Got the latest batch back, from Snapfish this time.
I can't say I am that impressed. I have attached an image of a pic they have printed with red lines showing just how much they cropped off. You can tell it is the actual image that was uploaded to them because I did a screenshot of it and it includes the tick in the bottom right corner !

It was suggested up thread that the printer was ignoring the white border, so next time I will add a black line round the edge of the white 40pix border. Irfan is capable of doing that as part of the batch process

Part of the problem, as prev mentioned, is their printing paper is not 6x4.
6in x 4in would be 15.2cm x 10.2cm, but their paper is 14.8cm x 10.2cm = 1:46 aspect ratio, not 1:5.
I had allowed for that in the Irfan canvas, I made it 1.46, but that white canvas (border) might have been ignored by the printer, see above.