Why resize photos for printing

How do I know if my photo is a good candidate for resizing? This can be a tough question to answer, but generally speaking, any image produced with a phone camera, a cheaper point and shoot or pulled off a social sharing site can be a good candidate for resizing depending on what size print you need. The only surefire way to tell is to view the photo at actual print size in Photoshop using our method here.

If there is pixelation at the desired print size, resizing can be done. The other part of the equation is completely subjective of course. What may be acceptable print quality to one may not be acceptable to another. On the other end, photographers reselling their work will almost never accept this kind of quality for obvious reasons. Not sure about resizing? Want us to work our magic for you?

Here is a quick way to find out if resizing might be necessary. Please only contact us if you have an intention of ordering from us. If you use a DSLR or 35 mm film and only print 6x4 prints, these are the same shape, so you may never realize there is any problem. But all other combinations will see a problem. Photo images from a compact or phone camera are shape long side is 1. However, is NOT a common paper shape. Some photo printing labs offer 4x5. And 6x8 or 9x12 inch paper may be available a few places.

Phone and compact camera images are typically , which will Not fit 4x6, 5x7, or 8x10 inch print paper without cropping. DSLR images typically are , and Will fit 4x6 inch paper. But neither nor will fit 5x7 or 8x10 inch paper without cropping. This definitely IS something to think about. Letting the automation just crop it with the paper edges can be a surprise, perhaps with cut off heads, etc.

It is very easy to crop them correctly yourself first, solving all problems, achieving your own goals. A rough visual guide in the camera viewfinder, for estimating the planned crop lines for future printing: In Viewfinder DSLR In Viewfinder compact or phone Note that the cropping need not be centered, it could be all at one side or the other, just positioned as needed to frame the important view. And note that if cropping it smaller than this retaining same ratio , both width and height will be reduced.

Cropping serves two purposes, for the best appearance, and to fit the print paper. In general, cropping a little tighter often pictorially improves many images anyway removes empty, uninteresting, or distracting surroundings, and makes the subject a bit larger. Often it can be a big plus. The "long" paper dimension is the same pixels in all three but a browser screen smaller than pixels can affect how that appears here.

This Crop to fit paper can be a trivially easy operation see Cropping on next page , and fitting the paper print is definitely something you need to know. Both format now matches printing on 6x4 paper size Kodak's standard tips for Taking Great Pictures always emphasized "Get Closer". Cropping tighter later can correct to serve the same purpose if it leaves sufficient pixels remaining , and cropping is usually a necessary step for printing anyway to match the paper shape to the image shape.

Opinions will always vary about specific details, but cropping is very easy to do. The biggest benefit is to first give it a seconds thought in the viewfinder. Slightly changing camera position to choose background can be a big help sometimes. Most printing labs where we send photo files to be printed set up their machines to fill all of the paper.

Normally they won't underfill the paper to leave white space, they will instead cut something off the image if necessary. If you order 5x7, you will get 5x7, but you may not get your entire image. This means if you print your images without first preparing them cropping them to the correct shape to fit the paper ordered , you may see surprises about parts of your image cut off, not showing in the final print.

This is nothing new with digital cameras, film was always the same thing. The film negative has a shape too, generally simply not the same shape as the print paper. However back then, there was a human operator watching and controlling and making decisions and adjusting things for film images.

Digital machines are automatic inexpensive prints , but digital does make it easy for us to crop it right first. Many online photo printing web sites offer a crop tool there online, and also ordering sometimes warns when our image is not the same size as the selected paper. And some processors offer an option to "Print Full Image", meaning, they won't crop anything off, but will instead leave blank white space borders where it doesn't fit the paper.

You can trim the paper smaller then. But generally, the paper shape itself is going to crop it, and a different shape simply will not fit And the point is that when we crop it ourself, then we see it, and we can judge and decide ourselves which portion of the image is to be cropped away We cannot fully print a 4x6 image on 4x5 paper.

The purpose of this next aspect ratio calculator is to help give an idea of the crop for the aspect ratio of the paper you want it to fit. The calculator is a minor thing see details in Cropping section on next page for the actual procedure , but perhaps the numbers can make the major point that cropping to fit the paper shape is usually very necessary.

The paper is usually NOT the same shape as the image, so we can choose to fit the long side to the paper, or to fit the short side to the paper. The point of the calculator is to show that image shape and paper shape are often NOT the same shape so we must crop the image shape to fit the paper.

Most camera images won't fit the paper without cropping. Results are better if we crop it ourself, for our choice about what is to be cropped off. It will provide an accurate answer about the result it intends, but instead it's an overdone effort for illustrative purposes, just to show the concept involved , to show the problem we always need to solve when printing.

Better maybe, the Summary chart probably is more clear, and should be informative. The image and the paper need to be the same shape, but usually are not, not until we correct by cropping the image to match the paper shape. In regular use, your photo editors crop and resample tools should be very adequate, if you understand the situation and know your goal next page. This one is about shape aspect ratio. It compares paper shape to image shape, and reports any mismatch.

Here, specify your image shape and your paper shape numbers. Calculations assume borderless printing. The calculator just computes the precise image numbers with shape which fit the paper shape. Another option is to enter "Other" for paper, and then enter any actual paper dimensions.

But the shapes of the image and paper do need to match fairly closely. Again, you can enter it as inches or mm or cm. Entering 5x4 or 10x8 or 50x40 or x80 will all give the same answer, because it is Not about size, this one is only about shape aspect in this example, all of which here divide out to be 1. The only dimensions used here are paper aspect ratio and image pixels trying to emphasize the concept of image and paper SHAPE. The Summary Chart assumption is that the print shop will fill the specified paper shape.

The percent error is the cropped off percentage of the image when the paper is filled. The words End or Width here refer simply to the cropped long End or the narrow paper Width both Portrait or Landscape Orientation can fit. But if only one dimension is fitted leaving blank space on the other side, the same percentage applies to the blank space. Most example paper sizes it shows are common to inches, but the same numbers could be mm sizes too, since this one is only about shape.

The procedure to prepare the image for printing: Crop image to shape matching paper shape, and for best appearance Then resample to size pixel dimensions appropriate for paper size and the printing resolution.

After this concept is realized, then see Another Calculator for a more elaborate working tool about the image you will need. But actually, that is overkill too still trying to show the concept , since once the concept is understood, then most photo editor resize boxes alone ought to be fully sufficient for preparing for printing see next page, crop to shape, then resample to size. Size is adjustable, but shape must be cropped The calculator allows comparing an image to a paper shape ratio.

Selecting "Other Shape" selects the two WxH boxes below it for paper shape. The largest Crop possible maximum dimensions to fit the paper shape is shown for the situations of fitting the long or the short side to the paper shape. Summary of Shape Mismatches Filled paper shape will crop off the: This is a summary of common results of three common image shapes on eleven paper shapes aspect ratios. Comparing shapes, the second column computes dimensions of "an 8 inch" print width on each paper shape.

The Calculators require JavaScript be enabled in your browser. The exact percentage numbers are not the point here. They are what they are, and any difference is not good. We know that a 4x6 image simply will not fit on 4x5 paper. And images and paper are often not the same shape, which means the image must be cropped to be the same shape as the paper.

This is just trying to emphasize that point here. We have good tools making this crop very easy to do, and it's an extremely important skill to learn. The point is, if you crop it yourself first, then how it turns out is your own choice.

More about cropping to aspect ratio on next page. Just a few pixels is normally no big deal, but otherwise, we should choose the best way to crop the image to the correct SHAPE first to match the paper shape , and after that if image is too large , then we might resample the image SIZE to print at about dpi on this paper.

I worry that novices not yet familiar with images may miss the point. Do realize that cropping to the paper shape is an extremely important issue when printing an image. Aspect ratio is just the simple ratio of the two sides. This ratio represents the Shape, the simple ratio of the sides. Like all math fractions, we normally reduce the to express it as the ratio , using the greatest common divisor method discovered by Euclid, 4th century B. GCD is in this case. Math does like exact numbers, and if our image had been x pixels, then greatest common divisor is 2, so reduction comes out , not exactly , and not as easily recognized the calculator may show rounded minor differences.

Crop to the print shape, and then resample to the print size and resolution described on next page. Not all programs offer an easy crop to print paper shape. Gimp and PaintShop Pro do, most better editors do.

It's a Crop or Marquee Tool option to specify a crop aspect ratio, and then any crop you mark matches the specified paper shape. It's an essential tool for printing. Yes, resample tools typically provide an option to NOT preserve image proportions. That way, we could resample 4x5 to be 4x6, or to be 8x However, that distorts the image, stretching or shrinking one dimension instead of changing both dimensions equally.

Circles would become ovals for example. People could become tall and thin, or short and wide. For resampling photos, surely you always want resampling to preserve, retain, maintain, or constrain image proportions however the editor words it, which should be default. Image Size So image Shape is important, and also, image Size is important. We can crop the shape, and resample the size to be smaller — resampling larger does not add needed detail. Discussed on next page, but for printing goals, the necessary procedure should be to first crop image to match the paper shape, and then resample smaller to produce image size of about dpi.

More pixels really cannot help the printer, but very much less is detrimental to quality. This is very simple, but it is essential to know and keep track of.

This simple little calculation will show the image size needed for optimum photo printing. This calculation is so simple, and is one thing you really need to know, and it should be second nature to you , to be considered when printing any image. This simple little calculation shows the concept, and can serve two purposes: It will show the required image size pixels to print this paper size at the dpi resolution. Or same thing, x pixels printed 8x10 inches will be printed at dpi resolution.

It will show the output image size created pixels if the area is scanned at the dpi resolution. Scanning 8x10 inches at dpi will produce x pixels. There is a larger dpi calculator that knows about scanning, printing, and enlargement. As you can see, there are enough pixels and resolution to print a high-quality 5-by-7 photo. In either Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, open your photo and press C on your keyboard to activate the Crop tool.

In the resolution field, enter Undo and try again. Tip: If you want to crop a photo while preserving its original aspect ratio, draw a crop box around the whole photo and then hold down the Shift key as you drag any corner handle diagonally inward.

You can also use the arrow keys on your keyboard to nudge the crop box into place. Resizing pictures can be very easy if you have the correct tools to help you. One of the easiest programs to use for photo resizing is Microsoft Picture Manager.

Here's how to resize photographs for printing. Open the folder where the pictures in need of resizing are located. Once open, find one picture you want to resize, right-click on the image and then select "open with" and "choose default program.