Question About Ordering Prints - LONG (Sorry)

[eeyoreland]

I find this board to be a wealth of information, but I must admit I am a complete novice when it comes to photography. That said, I have a question about having prints made. Again, I apologize that this is so long, but I wanted to include all the information so I can get a good answer.

I typically order upload and order prints through a local Walgreens. In the last six months or so, whenever I order prints, I get a message that reads:

"We noticed that photos in your order were taken with a digital camera and are not sized to fit 4x6 prints. We now offer a standard print size for digital prints: 4x5.3 (also known as 4xD). This size matches the shape of your digital camera images and lets us print the entire image, instead of cropping to fit traditional 4x6 paper."

I don't understand why, after years of ordering through Walgreens and never having a problem, that this has come up. I tried talking to the people at Walgreens, but they were of no help. I'm wondering if there is a setting on my camera that I can/should change, or any thing at all that you can tell me. You know, I think part of what bugs me the most is that my photos no longer fit nice and neat into my albums.

 

[GrumpyOne]

Cameras create pictures in different size ratios and a picture that looks perfect when printed at 5x7 won't look the same when printed at 8x10 or 8x12. Some information will need to be added or removed.

So while they were removing a bit off the top and bottom to make the ratio fit the 4x6 picture, if they're now offering a format that fits your camera, you won't lose anything in using that ratio.

There's no setting on your camera but if you know what size print you want to make, you can use an image editing program (and if you're using Walmart and small prints then something as simple as MS Paint will be fine) to crop the image so you get the exact image you want.

 

[fitzperry]

The reason this just came up when you've been ordering from them for years is most likely that they only recently began to offer the digital sized print. In other words, whether you realized it or not, your images were being cropped when you were getting 4x6 prints. They're simply giving you the option now of printing in a format that doesn't require cropping. You should still be able to order 4x6 prints, they will just be cropped to fit that aspect ratio.

Can you edit on Walgreens' website? If so, you could crop to 4x6 yourself, so you get to decide what gets cropped and what doesn't.

As GrumpyOne says, few (if any?) digicams offer the option of changing the aspect ratio in camera.

 

[eeyoreland]

Thanks for the advice. I did go through and crop all the pictures on Walgreens website. It was a long project, but I'm glad I did because I would have had quite a few heads chopped off if I would have ordered the 4x6 as is. In some cases I was disappointed at what did get cut off to make it fit, but I guess in the future I could leave those pics as is and go with the smaller size.

 

[fitzperry]

Thanks for the advice. I did go through and crop all the pictures on Walgreens website. It was a long project, but I'm glad I did because I would have had quite a few heads chopped off if I would have ordered the 4x6 as is. In some cases I was disappointed at what did get cut off to make it fit, but I guess in the future I could leave those pics as is and go with the smaller size.

You can also zoom out a bit when taking photographs to accommodate for the fact that you'll have to crop. The downside of course is that you end up spending the time to crop pretty much everything.