Printing Photos

[robh1920]

Ok, I know this cant be that hard. I am trying to send a photo to Mpix. I have edited(cropped and put some fade in along the borders) it in Photo Shop and when I upload to mpix for an 8X10 they want to crop it more and the crop they want to use will destroy the photo. I have attempted to resize it in PS and it becomes a little distorted. I attempted again with mpix and then they say it does not meet the minimum size for 8X10.
Is it just Mpix that does this?
Are all internet processors going to do this?
Who do you use for your processing?

I am new to all this but I thought my photo would be down sized to fit on the sheet I requested without further cropping.

[Daniel Bates]

What aspect ratio is your original picture (the one you are trying to upload)? It will have to match one of the Mpix ratios (8x10, 8x12, etc) if you want to print it.


I use Mpix for all my printing--they do very good quality work.

[exposedmedia]

you should start with your original, crop to 8x10 if your gonna specifially print that size, then make your edits in photoshop and upload to mpix. nothing should get cropped then. to give you the best print possible they won't upsize if its a low res photo which is why you don't get the option.

[iCe]

MPix rocks. I use the crop tool in CS2. Adjust as needed. Upload. Order. Wait a few days. Viola... I get my print(s)

[Bartman01]

Originally Posted by robh1920

I have attempted to resize it in PS and it becomes a little distorted.

Don't 'resize' it, crop it to 8x10 first. Only resize if you need to downres it.

[Huck]

Okay I am confused now. (Thats not hard to do)

So "crop" to the size you want to print after you are done editing the photos, vs. resizing it.
So i guess now this brings up a question for me.

Say I take a series of pics (IE, my son with a background). And I wanted to make a picture packet with 8x10, 5x7 etc.... I guess there wouldnt be much cropping on something like that, but say I did and then I wanted to get that crop printed in different sizes, how would I go about doing that?

With single pics, this has been a HUGE issue for me, but this is something I am going to use more often now.

[exposedmedia]

you would only upload the original to mpix never cropping or resizing. make all adjustments in photoshop to the original file and upload the whole image to mpix. once you choose the sizes in mpix you will do the cropping through their interface but you'll need that full image to be able to crop to different sizes.

[Bartman01]

Originally Posted by Huck

I guess there wouldnt be much cropping on something like that

For reference the outer white bars show the full 4x6 image captured by most DSLR's

The middle gray image is 5x7

The inner dark gray is 8x10.

There is a little cropping from 4x6 to 5x7, and a little more to 8x10. 4x6 to 8x10 can be a significant crop if you didn't plan this when framing the image to begin with.

[kenw]

the secret is to crop to an aspect ratio (5x7, 8x10, whatever) instead of to a print size (5x7, 8x10, whatever)....

what's he smoking?

In that crown jewel of simplicity paintshop pro, simply do it this way:

select the crop tool (duh)
make sure "Maintain aspect ratio" is UN-checked.
enter the crop size of 5x7 (or whatever)
(a small window appears showing that size on the image)

NOW check the "Maintain aspect ratio" box
drag the corner of the crop box to whatever you want to keep, and note the aspect ratio remains the same regardless of how you drag it about (5x7=10x14=15x21, ad nauseum but they all have the same 5x7 aspect ratio)

click once inside the cropped box to remove the excess

your final image is now cropped to an ASPECT RATIO of 5x7 regardless of the dpi/ppi (which is what screws things up when cropping to a print size)

Do not resize the image.

send this image to Mpix and they won't need to crop it. works for WalMart too......

note you will have to do this for each size because they are different aspect ratios (as shown in the diagram above)