Stupid print question! Crop for quality?

[Mark G]

Hi all

Stupid question alert. I have a series of images to print that I'll be printing on 6x4. For the best quality shall I crop the image to 6x4 or could the quality be any better using a different crop? maybe 12x8?

Thanks
Mark.

 

[POAH]

what printer are you using?

 

[cambsno]

Those are the same crops - 3:2 ratio.

 

[Mark G]

I'll be having them printed in Jessops. I realise that they are the same ratio, but am asking if there is any benefit of extra resolution by cropping for a larger print size and printing smaller?

 

[photon]

It's the dots per inch that matter (to some extent). With 300dpi, which is 1800x1200 pixels for a 6x4, you would have no problems. You could cut the resolution down to 100dpi (600x400 pixels for 6x4) and just about get away with it.

 

[snappingsam]

The Fuji and Noritsu printers used in most labs have a default resolution of 300 ppi - so a file thats larger will just slow it down - and if the file os very large you might even get an inferior result, as interpolation effects it whilst downsizing (but only from very large files)

 

[Tokkelossi]

As my old boss used to tell me

'there is no such thing as a stupid question' .....

'only stupid people asking questions'

Im still asking questions even now hahahaha

 

[mangust]

keep an eye on ratio. If you have 3:2 ratio picture and will print on 3:4 media, and vice versa. Printer or lab can crop it for you, but composition can be not the best. I am always cropping pictures to same ratio as media. Resolution in pixels maximum possible of course. Printer can easily scale it down. If you know exact media resolution in pixels then you can scale it down in your photoshop so that you can control sharpness parameters.

For myself i shoot in 3:2 and like it to be printed 3:2