printer not sizing prints like monitor?

Are you printing out of Photoshop, lightroom or something else.
 
Something in the printer property settings over-riding Photoshop print settings to make the image 'fit to page'???
 
mark richards said:
yeah, but i don't want mess around with something i know f***all about.:D .
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But if that is where the problem is ;)

Just a thought to aid any others trying to help, perhaps you can give more details about what you are doing?

Such as:-

1) image size in pixel dimensions and at what dpi setting?
2) what size is the paper and just what size is your anticipated print?
3) have you previously gotten prints that were just right and if so what might be different or changed by you this time around?
 
mark richards said:
just not noticed before,but looking at some old prints they are the same, (stretched)
300 pixels per inch, where do i get dpi settings?
printing on normal A4.
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PPI and DPI are effectively the same ;)

But what are the actual dimensions e.g 6000 X 4000 pixels of the image file, your stating 300 PPI does not tell me/us that.
 
mark richards said:
View attachment 110730
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Those dimensions make a ratio of 1.53 : 1 are non standard print size ratio, it would at 300 PPI fit onto an A4 sized page but coming back to the ratio question it makes wonder if somewhere 'print management' is taking over and trying to fit your file into a 1.5 : 1 sized space.....that would cause a distortion!
 
Orangecroc said:
Is the resolution of your monitor correct for it's aspect ratio? It's possible your resolution setting is distorting the image.
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mark richards said:
thats what i'm thinking.
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Orangecroc said:
What monitor do you have?
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mark richards said:
LG flatron 22in
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Orangecroc said:
If you can, try using 1,680x1,050 as it is the native resolution of the monitor.
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The 1680 x 1050 is the recommended max resolution for that monitor but I note in the manual that the monitor has both analogue and digital inputs AFAIK and though I could not quickly find it some monitors will only give their max resolution when connected to the digital source and the analogue is lower res.

Having said that Mark says the print looks distorted not the monitor image........................scratching my head to see why the wrong choice of resolution will give a properly proportioned image on screen but print stretched???
 
Box Brownie said:
The 1680 x 1050 is the recommended max resolution for that monitor but I note in the manual that the monitor has both analogue and digital inputs AFAIK and though I could not quickly find it some monitors will only give their max resolution when connected to the digital source and the analogue is lower res.

Having said that Mark says the print looks distorted not the monitor image........................scratching my head to see why the wrong choice of resolution will give a properly proportioned image on screen but print stretched???
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It's the native resolution as well as the highest resolution.
Because the screen is where he views images most often, he will become conditioned to the distortion, particularly if it isn't a large difference.
 
Box Brownie said:
The 1680 x 1050 is the recommended max resolution for that monitor but I note in the manual that the monitor has both analogue and digital inputs AFAIK and though I could not quickly find it some monitors will only give their max resolution when connected to the digital source and the analogue is lower res.

Having said that Mark says the print looks distorted not the monitor image........................scratching my head to see why the wrong choice of resolution will give a properly proportioned image on screen but print stretched???
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if you don't look at monitor when its printed, it looks fine, but not when you compare a bird or person, it gives it a dumpy look? thanks all for your comments.
 
mark richards said:
if you don't look at monitor when its printed, it looks fine, but not when you compare a bird or person, it gives it a dumpy look? thanks all for your comments.
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If you can I would welcome seeing the above screenshot taken without the dialogue box i.e. to see the actual screen image of the bird and if you can also take a picture of the same print and post that up in the same new post as a comparison that be great to see :)
 
I've just altered the image size on a photo to the ones shown in your screen capture, and the preview from Photoshop when I select print with preview shows a white band along the top and bottom indicating that the pixel dimensions don't match the paper. I'm pushed to think of a camera that would exactly match the ratio of an A4 sheet.

So I'm more interested in knowing whether your prints are borderless or have borders, and what your printer is. I used both an Epson 3880 which lets me preview the print (pretty accurately, as it happens) by ticking the box in the printer driver and an Epson C2800N laser which lacks this facility. Does your printer let you see what it's going to do before it does it?
 
mark richards said:
it dosn't give me that option , the nearest is 1600x 1200? which it is set at.
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Where are you looking to check & set the screen resolution?
What is the PC and do you know what video card it has? What operating system is it running?
Is the computer connected to the monitor analogue or digital input ?

I ask because if you cannot see to set the screen max resolution then there must a hardware and/or software reason for this 'issue'?
 
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StephenM said:
I've just altered the image size on a photo to the ones shown in your screen capture, and the preview from Photoshop when I select print with preview shows a white band along the top and bottom indicating that the pixel dimensions don't match the paper. I'm pushed to think of a camera that would exactly match the ratio of an A4 sheet.

So I'm more interested in knowing whether your prints are borderless or have borders, and what your printer is. I used both an Epson 3880 which lets me preview the print (pretty accurately, as it happens) by ticking the box in the printer driver and an Epson C2800N laser which lacks this facility. Does your printer let you see what it's going to do before it does it?
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I normally print with borders, these will be covered with the mount-board when framed, I'm using a canon i9950 printer A3 and have print preview ticked before printing, I would say that it is printing about 15% more on the bottom of
photo, so its like squashing the photo from the sides and adding extra in depth, if that makes sense.:)
 
Box Brownie said:
Where are you looking to check & set the screen resolution?
What is the PC and do you know what video card it has? What operating system is it running?
Is the computer connected to the monitor analogue or digital input ?

I ask because if you cannot see to set the screen max resolution then there must a hardware and/or software reason for this 'issue'?
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I just looked at the video cards driver settings and resolution, win 10 64bit analogue .
 
So it's stretching the landscape format in a vertical direction? If so, that's what I would expect from the pixel dimensions you gave if you're somehow constraining the printer to produce equal sized margins. The image doesn't match the proportions of the paper, and the only way to avoid white margins top and bottom (if printing borderless) or wider margins top and bottom is to distort the image.

The only ways I can think of to avoid this are to either accept the above situation, or to reposition the image on the page to place the extra white at the bottom, and have equal borders top, left and right.
 
mark richards said:
I just looked at the video cards driver settings and resolution, win 10 64bit analogue .
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Sounds like your PC is modern, therefore firstly if you can tell us the make & model number of the video card it can be looked up for spec....... hopefully it has a digital port and a small cost option would be to buy a suitable cable,this also on the surmise I looked at the right version of your monitor and it does have a digital port?


EDIT ~ I looked again at your screengrab and it does not look like a 1680 x 1050 ratio (just checked my Dell 2209W and it is that resolution! I am assuming that the screengrab is the full size screen i.e. it fills the screen bezel edge to bezel edge, if so it cannot be a 16:9 widescreen..................but all the LG Flatron 22in types I see online are widescreen models ~ a tad confused here especially as I cannot see any distortion in the icons or the text etc showing in the screengrab.....and if using a non native/custom resolution I would have thought there would be some???

PS I can find some very old Flatron 20inch non wide ones at 1600 x 1200 max native but all 22inch do appear to be Wide models.
 
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mark richards said:
it dosn't give me that option , the nearest is 1600x 1200? which it is set at.
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720 x 400
640 x 480
640 x 480
800 x 600
800 x 600
1024 x 768
1024 x 768
1152 x 864
1280 x 1024
1280 x 1024
1680 x 1050

Now this list was in the 22inch LG manual I downloaded and the is no 1600 x 1200, quite odd! So either I got the wrong model (please give the exact model number for me to cross check :) ) or your video card is is utilising a non native resolution size???

As they say the devil is in the details :LOL:
 
You mentioned you are printing from PS

Scale the print size of an image
  • Choose File > Print, and expand the Position And Size settings at right. Then do one of the following:
    • To fit the image within the printable area of the selected paper, click Scale To Fit Media.
    • To rescale the image numerically, deselect Scale To Fit Media, then enter values for Scale, Height and Width.
    • To achieve the desired scale, drag the bounding box around the image in the preview area.
I have made bold the line above.........are you selecting that option, if so that could be the cause I mentioned i.e. you are trying to fit your odd aspect ratio file (1.53 : 1) into a standard aspect ratio (1.5.: 1) space and to do what you are asking it is changing the look of the image(s) ???
 
Just by way of information I found this page http://www.photoshopessentials.com/essentials/print-size/ where part way down headed Finding Your Actual Screen Resolution made me want to look at mine to ensure that I see print size truly on my PC versus a default print size defined by the historic settings the article talks about...............will check this out later :)
 
On my version of Photoshop (CS2) "scale to fit media" just makes sure that the whole of the image will fit onto the paper, but doesn't stretch it. If you crop any image (as a test only) to a panorama and tick this box, you get a wide margin top and bottom and the image proportions unaltered. With my file sizes, without this being ticked I'd just get the cetre of the image.
 
Why print from Photoshop? would be my first question. have you tried printing straight from computer. Photoshop may well have its own settings. I often get the photo up on screen then print from there instead.Looks to me as if yor getting bogged down with what photoshop offers and not taking the simple route
 
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I've just downloaded and read (more skimmed, really) the manual for the i9950 printer, and there are certainly settings in the driver that would rescale the photo (i.e. stretch it) to fit the paper if the proportions don't match.
 
realspeed said:
Why print from Photoshop? would be my first question. have you tried printing straight from computer. Photoshop may well have its own settings. I often get the photo up on screen then print from there instead.Looks to me as if yor getting bogged down with what photoshop offers and not taking the simple route
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Using PrtScr? Otherwise you're still using some program (the file viewer) to control the printing.
 
StephenM said:
On my version of Photoshop (CS2) "scale to fit media" just makes sure that the whole of the image will fit onto the paper, but doesn't stretch it. If you crop any image (as a test only) to a panorama and tick this box, you get a wide margin top and bottom and the image proportions unaltered. With my file sizes, without this being ticked I'd just get the cetre of the image.
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By default (?) most programs when cropping will constrain to original ratio but the ratio that the OP is showing is custom cropped i.e. unconstrained. So I wonder as you describe the scale to fit is based on constrained/original ratio but if custom ratio will alter the size to fit?
 
I'm not sure I understand your post. As I understand it, "contrained to original ratio" means that if the original size is (say) 3000x2000, cropping 10% from the long side (to 2700) would automatically result in the short side becoming 1800. If by "custom ratio" you mean cropping to 3000x1000 (to create a panorama) this is exactly what I did in Photoshop; and the result (in print preview) was an image with wide white top and bottom margins when the "scale to fit" box was ticked.

Without ticking this box, the given ppi and image size resulted in an image that filled the paper, yes; but only with that part of the image that could fit unless reduced in size (i.e. centre of image only). As my "normal" files are about 30,000x24,000 pixels, I have this box ticked by default. And I always get wide borders if the image proportions don't match the paper proportions.

As I understand the comments in the Canon printer driver, it's possible to overrule the wide borders at the printing stage, and stretch the height to again fill the paper, eliminating the wide margins but distorting the image. Not having the printer, I can't confirm this from experience.
 
Box Brownie said:
Just by way of information I found this page http://www.photoshopessentials.com/essentials/print-size/ where part way down headed Finding Your Actual Screen Resolution made me want to look at mine to ensure that I see print size truly on my PC versus a default print size defined by the historic settings the article talks about...............will check this out later :)
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looking into this , my monitors res is 1680-1050 works out, "if i worked it out right" is 90 dpi. the only thing that i cannot tick is the graphics tick box in performance ? it wont allow me .
also i cannot seem to be able to use my resolution size in graphics card drop down menu,
its not the printer giving me the trouble, because it was the same with my epson R1800...
my graphics card is : ATI radeon HD 3450.
 
Box Brownie said:
! I am assuming that the screengrab is the full size screen i.e. it fills the screen bezel edge to bezel edge, if so it cannot be a 16:9 widescreen
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Not all widescreen monitors are 16:9 there are many wide screen monitors that have a 16:10 aspect ratio (The monitor I am sitting in front of now has a resolution of 1920x1600 because the AR is 16:10 not 16:9). I suspect the OP's monitor has a 16:10 AR. if so the 1600x1200 would be the correct resolution The computer will automatically set the correct resolution if it is connected via a HDMI or DVI connector
 
Box Brownie said:
You are not the only who had/has this problem ~ talked about here http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/253495-33-radeon-3450-resolution-help

can you clarify is it connected (I did ask this above ;) ) to the D-sub (analogue) port or the DVI (digital) port and do you have the most up to date drivers?
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D-sub (analogue) port , didn't know i could use the yellow port, is it a better one to use?
when i look in the graphics card drivers it says that driver is not installed? but why is it working, if no drivers.. this is getting bloody confusing.
 
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