Trouble printing off pictures..

[JonAQ]

For the first time, I had trouble printing off pictures the other day at Walmart. I wanted to get two pictures of Alexandra Daddario, and one of Kevin McKidd. When I was choosing the sizes and the pictures, it kept wanting me to crop them down and wouldn't let me have the whole photo. This has never happened to me. I tried to downsize them through paint but it did the same thing.

Can anyone help me please?

Here are the pictures I was trying to print, in the original sizes.

Alexandra Daddario 1
http://i1089.photobucket.com/albums/i34 ... nabeth.jpg

Alexandra Daddario 2
http://i1089.photobucket.com/albums/i34 ... ddario.jpg

Kevin McKidd
http://i1089.photobucket.com/albums/i34 ... Mckidd.jpg


I was trying to get them in 5x7, but I would also accept 4x6.

[RYAN J.]

Were you using the 1-hour machine to print these on??? I'm not sure why it would keep askin you to crop them down. If you'd like, I can try and resize these in photoshop to 5x7 and see if that will work for you. Then I'll email them to you.

RYAN J.

[JonAQ]

Yeah I was using the 1-hour machine. I tried to do "print in days" and "print in hours" but it wanted me to crop them down each time. And yeah I would really appreciate that!

[dfreely]

Was it just cropping it down to get it into proportion? That would be normal, otherwise there'd just be whitespace on the sides.

[JonAQ]

It was cropping out most of the picture

[RYAN J.]

Sending the photos over to you right now!! Let me know if that works for you.

RYAN J.

[packrat]

I'll do my best to explain, but I'm not always good at putting what I know into words...

The reason you have to crop them is because the ratio of the file is different from the ratio of a 5x7 photo. A rule of thumb is that each 100 pixels is roughly equal to one inch. That isn't true all the time but it often gives you an idea. The first link you provided, that of AlexadraDaddario-Annabeth.jpg is a file that is 594x826, and it will be good for a "6x8" photo. But there is no such thing as a 6x8 photo and a file like that doesn't always print right as a 5x7. So in order to fit the picture into a 5x7, you have to crop some of it off. If you try to resize it to make the whole file fit, you will usually wind up with a white border on two sides.

[JonAQ]

Ryan- Just got the pictures. Thanks so much! I'm going to try these out either tonight or tomorrow sometime. I appreciate it

Packrat- Hm..I think I understand. I tried to resize it through paint but it didn't work

[RYAN J.]

Good deal!! If you ever need any other photos resized let me know! I use photoshop and it does a fantastic job of resizing photos, so what you see on your computer screen is what you get when it prints off at the store. Shouldn't have any problems this time.

RYAN J.

[dfreely]

packrat did a good job explaining it in words, certainly better than I did, but perhaps it's best shown in pictures.

The reason your picture needs to be cropped is for it to fit within the constrains of a 5x7. For example, here's one of your pictures, with a 5x7 overlay on it (shown in purple). As you can, it needs to crop off the sides in order to fit.


Now if you tried to get the whole photo to fit on a 5x7, there would excess space since the picture would end up smaller than the 5x7. Here is what would happen if you didn't crop, and tried to fit the entire photo in - there would be extra space on the top and bottom (shown again in purple).


Resizing the picture does nothing, because it's not the size that's the issue, it's the ratio/proportion. To get the picture to fit perfectly into a 5x7, it would end up being disproportionate and stretched out.