so confused with cropping, editing...

[wheelerkidz3]

good morning everyone! i posted the other day about where to get my pics developed. many told me of the diff places you use, and i thank you all for your input!! we are making a trip to sam's club today, and i've always liked the way they print their photos, however it is too long of a drive to go there all the time. we're heading there today though, and i'm getting some prints done!!! the last batch i had done by walmart.com didn't turn out the way i had hoped...my dd's head was cut off in some, and i just wasn't impressed.
my question this time is about cropping...i've gotten myself so confused! if i have photos i've already cropped at home, and i put them on a cd for printing...will the crops turn out normal once the pics are printed at sam's? does it matter if i've cropped the pic down, and it is a diff size from the original? or am i supposed to resize them somehow? example...the one of my dd....the original pic had a bunch of stuff around the edges...so i tried to crop it out...the resulting pic was skinnier than the original. when walmart printed it, it came back to me with her head missing!
i'm not sure why i'm confusing myself so much! the last time i had pics printed though...we just took the memory card right to sam's...put it in the reader, and had them just print one of each. i never tried to edit them before i printed.
can anyone tell me what i need to do?? can you tell i'm a photo dummy?? i'm so sorry!! i want to learn though!!!

 

[Groucho]

The only thing that matters is the aspect ratio, not the number of pixels in the image. If you're getting a 4x6 print, you need a picture that is 2:3 (same as 4:6) in order to keep anything from being cut off.

My favorite program for doing quick editing like cropping, etc, is Irfanview (link in my signature.) It has a "Create custom selection" option which will create a box in whatever size or aspect ratio you want. For what you're doing, you can tell it to make a 3:2 (or 2:3 for vertical photos) box, then stretch that and move it around the photo until you've got what you want in there. Crop it and save it to a new file and get that printed.

There are other programs that do it, too, but Irfanview is tiny, fast, and very powerful - it's an essential tool for my photo work.

 

[YEKCIM]

Picasa also has a good cropping tool; there are preset crops for 4X6, 5X7, 8X10, and a custom size/aspect ratio. If you use the 4X6 crop, your prints ought to be *exactly* like the cropped image. In Picasa, though, you do have to export the cropped file, as the program does not alter the original file, which is a good thing, IMO.

~YEKCIM

 

[dburg30]

Hi Shannon,

The first thing I would suggest, of any pictures that you want to keep, is as soon as you take them out of the camera and put them on your computer, to go ahead and put the original images on a CD, maybe even 2 CD's one that you keep somewhere safer in case something horrible were to happen like a fire or something.

The other reason for this is in case you do some editing of the pictures, and maybe accidently overwrite the original picture. If all the sudden you realize you didnt want to do that, if you dont have a backup you now dont have the original picture!!!

Like others have said, and I was guilty of that not long ago, you have to keep the proper ratio when you crop so they will print out right. I'm no pro, but have been messing with digital photography for a number of years now, and just about 6 months ago I cropped an image, uploaded it to WalMart, went and got it and looked at them and scratched my head.. When I went home and looked, I realized I cropped it ok, but didnt keep the right ratio . So it's something you have to just get used to

Also, do you have a printer at home? Even if you are going to have them printed at walmarts or some place like that, you can also print them out, even on a low quality setting so you dont use a lot of ink, and see what they are going to look like.

You'll get the hang of it, and soon you'll love making cropped pictures

 

[MICKEY88]

paint shop pro photo XI makes cropping simple...

you pick the crop tool pick the size photo you want and you get a box that you can move around and stretch to crop as you want, then you click on the pic and it's cropped to the right size.

just remember if printing various sizes, crop for each size...

 

[wheelerkidz3]

thanks so much everyone! the explanations here have really helped...and i guess i'm not going to just take a cd to sam's club tonite. i need to make sure all the pics are the right ratio first! yikes!!i have quite a few to go thru, so i know what my afternoon will be filled with!!
again, thanks for helping!

 

[Yellow_Stitch]

Picasa also has a good cropping tool; there are preset crops for 4X6, 5X7, 8X10, and a custom size/aspect ratio. If you use the 4X6 crop, your prints ought to be *exactly* like the cropped image. In Picasa, though, you do have to export the cropped file, as the program does not alter the original file, which is a good thing, IMO.

~YEKCIM

The latest update to Picasa changed this a bit. After working on a folder of pictures, the library view will have a "save changes" button and the number of files you've changed. It will make a hidden folder of the originals, so you don't need to export files. Now when you edit, your top undo action is "undo save" and then your previous edits are still undoable. Pretty slick! I suppose if you're low on disk space this might not be a good thing, but I really like it.

 

[ukcatfan]

Every print shop will be different, but as long as the person knows what they are doing, you can ask them to not auto fill all available print space. This will lead to the ones in the wrong aspect ratio having wasted blank space that you will have to cut off though. They will likely charge extra to trim that for you.

Kevin