Questions for People Who Get 4x6 Prints Commercially -- a littlelong

jim evans wrote:
I'm trying to help a friend learn photo editing. She has her photos
printed commercially. I don't have any experience with this and a
couple of issues/questions have come up that have made me wonder.

Number 1:
A full frame digital image length to width ratio is 1.3. 4x6 print
ratio is 1.5. This means that people who just walk up, stick their
memory card in the machine and ask for prints have the top or bottom
of their images chopped off.
The Fuji Kiosks will automatically crop evenly as needed to make the
image fit the selected paper size. Depending how the software has been
setup by the store, they can give the option of letting the customer
adjust the cropping rectangle, or give the customer the choice of "print
to fit", where it will print the entire image, leaving white edges as
necessary.
Do most people realize this or do they
think it was just the way they took the picture? My friend had been
doing this, and until she began seeing the entire frame on the screen
she didn't realize her pictures were being cropped.
IME most people don't realise this. The lab I used to work in (and
occasionally still fill in), had clear signs up next to each terminal
demonstrating the effect, and explaining what to do about it (manual
cropping or print-to-fit). We also configured the machines to display a
warning screen as the user started that cropping was possible. Despite
these efforts, it was almost a daily occurrence that we'd get someone
who wouldn't want to pay for prints because of automatic cropping
issues. In film days this was never an issue, as people couldn't
remember exactly how they had framed the image, most viewfinders had
allowance anyway, and the most common print size matched the aspect
ratio of the most common film. (But even when we had 5x7 promotions etc,
there wasn't an issue). Enter digital, and they see the entire image on
the camera, then wonder why the entire image doesn't print on the paper.

Number 2:
If you give the service an image that is sized to 4x6 exactly, they
enlarge the image slightly. Then the part larger than the 4x6 paper
is chopped off all around the edges. I assume they do this to deal
with the small error/tollerances in the paper handling of their
machines. That is, a little forgiveness for misalignment so there
won't be small white streaks on one edge or the other.
That is correct.

Are most people aware of this?
No, but it is rarely an issue, as this is much smaller than the amount a
4:3 image is cropped.
If so, what's the most common method
used to compensate for it?
Prints with white borders - the image will then be completely printed.
Or, do most people not care that they
lose the edge of their photos? I first noticed it when a picture of a
crowd had the people's feet (which were near the bottom) chopped off.
usually the amount cropped is much smaller than that - the feet must
have been right at the bottom, and fairly small.

jim

jim evans wrote:
On Sat, 11 Feb 2006 22:07:56 +1000, Graham Fountain
wrote:

I first noticed it when a picture of a
crowd had the people's feet (which were near the bottom) chopped off.
usually the amount cropped is much smaller than that - the feet must
have been right at the bottom, and fairly small.

Yes the feet were small -- it was a picture of a crowd.

Thanks for your reply. It was very helpful.

Do you happen to know how much larger than the print size they enlarge
the image? It looks like about 2mm or .08 inches on a 4x6.
In the Fuji Frontiers you can adjust the amount of overprint. Normally
it is about 2mm for 6x4, lifting to about 5mm on an 8x10. If you set it
to 0 you'll see just how inaccurate the paper registration can be - it
needs pretty much all of those 2mm to ensure the paper is all covered.
Personally I prefer to choose bordered prints - that way there is no
cropping, and I like the look of a thin white border around my prints.

jim