what have i done wrong. help please

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jinja chin

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i had some prints done at a local shop when she went to print she had to cut some of the picture out to fit it in. they were all cropped pics if that makes sence i want to get it right before i start ordering online thanks
 
If they were straight out of camera, you can print 6x4 7x5 9x6 12x8 etc your SLR's ratio is 3:2

Any other sizes for example 10x8 will be the wrong shape (5:4 ratio), for the photo and you'l need to crop them yourself to the correct ratio before you send them to be printed. This is easily done in photoshop and lightroom using the crop tool and entering the dimensions.

I order 12x8 prints of mine as they match the sensor ratio perfectly, but its not a frame size you'll find in the high street.

I think the ratios are left overs from 5x4 film photography, compact digitals have this 5x4 ratio too.
 
7x5 isn't a 3:2 ratio print, which is why some places offer 7.5x5 which is.

If you multiply short side x 1.5 you get the appropriate wide side dimension.

The final size of any cropped print needs to fit paper, or you'll end up with unprinted borders if they reduce to fit, or it will get cropped further.
 
im a bit confused by all this ratio talk its the first time ive printed . ive got photoshop thanks
 
jinja chin said:
they were 6x4 only to see what they come out like i will mainly be 7x 5
Click to expand...

did you do any cropping to make them an awkward ratio.

3:2 is the camera sensor ratio so its essentially the print size when printing straight out of camera, 3x2, 6x4, 9x6, 12x8 etc any size that has the 3 and 2 factors.

you might have cropped to a more squarish size (4:3 for example) in photoshop and now printing will cause it to stretch and crop automatically.
 
jinja chin said:
im a bit confused by all this ratio talk its the first time ive printed . ive got photoshop thanks
Click to expand...

Ratio, as far as photos go, is just an expression used to compare the length of the two sides of the picture.

For a modern dslr, the long side is 1.5x the length of the short side. For ease of reference, and to remove the decimal place, this is rounded up and expressed as 3:2 (3 being 1.5x bigger than 2). Thus it can be seen that pictures that measure 6x4, 9x6, 12x8, 24x16, 30x20 etc all have the same ratio, and can all be used to print the images straight from your camera without cropping, because they are the same ratio as the pictures produced by your camera.

The problem comes when we want to make prints that do not share this 3:2 ratio. Common sizes that do not fit this ratio are typically 7x5 and 10x8. If you want to print at 7x5, you will lose 1/2 inch off the long side, so it is best to crop the image yourself, otherwise the printing lab may chop off part of the picture that you want to keep.

10x8 is even worse, as it is a much 'squarer' format. Should you ever wish to print at 10x8 you have two options. You can crop the long side of your image - the closest native size straight from camera is 12x8, so you are going to lose 2 inches from the long side to get it to fit 10x8. The alternative is to print so that the long side fits the 10", but this will leave white borders at the top and bottom, as the short side of your picture will only measure 6.7", not the 8" required to fill the paper.
 
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