printing exactly same size as on the screen, with no borders

[Harry Briels]

Using a Epson 3800 I am trying to print exactly what I see on my screen, borderless and without anything being cut away.
My impression is that when printing borderless some part of the photo is always cut away?

Isn't a setting possible which prints the complete photo without any cutting away and in borderless?

 

[clee01l]

Does you screen have the exact same aspect ratio as the paper? Does the image have the exact same ratio as the paper? If the paper (for example) is A4, it has an aspect ratio of 1.414. An uncropped image from your camera will have an aspect ratio of ~1.5. You can not place an image with an aspect ratio of 1.5 on to paper that has an aspect ratio of 1.414 without leaving some portion of the paper uncovered by image (white border) or some portion of the image that extends beyond the margins of the paper (cut away) So, if you want to print borderless, you need to crop a portion of the original image to fit the aspect ratio of the paper that it will be printer on. This will not ensure borderless, since the printer itself needs to have the capability of printing to the edge of the paper.

 

[Mike59]

Clee are you saying that the dimensions of the A series paper sizes, as defined by the ISO 216 standard are all of an aspect ratio of 1.414. So if so should I crop all photos to that ratio if printing to ISO216 standard papers.

 

[Harry Briels]

Hello Clee:

Thanks for response.

Say I have taken a photo that for good reasons, I do not want to crop, and want to print without any borders.
How can I accomplish this without the system cropping parts away from the photo?
And also without having to get involved in complicated matters like aspect ratio etc.?

I looked into this "aspect ratio"-matter .
No idea what the aspect ration of my screen is?
No information can I find in "About this Mac"
No idea how to determine what the aspect ration is of 10 x 15 mm (approx. 4x6") photo paper?

No fun anymore if matters become this complicated!

 

[clee01l]

Hello Clee:

Thanks for response.

Say I have taken a photo that for good reasons, I do not want to crop, and want to print without any borders.
How can I accomplish this without the system cropping parts away from the photo?
And also without having to get involved in complicated matters like aspect ratio etc.?

I looked into this "aspect ratio"-matter .
No idea what the aspect ration of my screen is?
No information can I find in "About this Mac"
No idea how to determine what the aspect ration is of 10 x 15 mm (approx. 4x6") photo paper?

No fun anymore if matters become this complicated!

It is not complicated. The rectangular shape of the paper is determined by the its aspect ratio. ISO 216 standards define paper shapes that are for the most part always the same shape. If you divide the height by the width (larger number by the smaller), you will get the aspect ratio (an easy number to obtain). The size of A4 paper is 210 x 297 mm (8.3 x 11.7 in) and this yields an aspect ratio of 1.414 (the square root of 2). So, now you understand the shape of the paper. The shape of the sensor in your camera is different. The sensor width is roughly 1 times of its height This is the same proportions as was chosen for 35mm film. The rectangle shapes of the paper and the sensor are not the same. Expressing this another way, what if the sensor image shape was a circle? How would you print it on a rectangular piece of paper? Either some of the circle would be cut off or there would be white spaces left over on the paper. If the shape of the sensor were a square, how would it print on A4 paper? The same answer, either some of the image would be cut off or there would be white spaces left over on the paper. Well neither the shape of the paper rectangle or the shape of the sensor are a square. But then neither are they the same as each other. The square, A4 paper and the camera sensor are all rectangles, just not the same rectangles. Your computer screen is a different shape rectangle too. The HDTV shape is 16:9 The old CRT was 4:3.

If you want to print a shape that is the same as the shape of your camera sensor and have no borders, then you need to use paper that is the same shape as the image. Now if you are using photo paper that is 10X15cm (~4"X6") then you are using a paper that is ~the same shape as your sensor. The key to this borderless issue is the (~) approximately equal part. Your sensor is probably not exactly 3:2 (1.5) but your paper is. You will only be able to print borderless IF the shape of the image is exactly the same as the shape of the paper. If your limitation is the shape of the paper (A4 or what ever), then your only remaining choices are to print with some white space remaining on the paper or trim (crop) the image to fit the shape of the paper.

 

[clee01l]

Clee are you saying that the dimensions of the A series paper sizes, as defined by the ISO 216 standard are all of an aspect ratio of 1.414. So if so should I crop all photos to that ratio if printing to ISO216 standard papers.

Only if you want to print borderless on that paper. Standard (in the US at least) sizes of picture frames and mattes is 4X5 (8X10) and 5X7. None of these match the aspect ratio of "Full Frame" or "APS-C" cameras.

If you want a rule of thumb, crop to your final destination media. Paper can always be trimmed to fit the picture frame or matte. Often I will print square. This corresponds to the medium format camera (or 120 film size).

 

[jameschowe]

This l link may help you convert the A range of paper sizes
http://www.papersizes.org/a-paper-sizes.htm

 

[Allan Olesen]

Say I have taken a photo that for good reasons, I do not want to crop, and want to print without any borders.
How can I accomplish this without the system cropping parts away from the photo?
And also without having to get involved in complicated matters like aspect ratio etc.?

Imagine that you have square piece of paper and a non-square photo.

I hope you can immediately see that there is no way to put that photo onto the paper without doing one of these:
- Cut some of the photo away so it becomes square
- Only fill the paper partially, without printing to all 4 edges of the paper.
- Stretch the photo in one direction so it becomes square.

Since the last of these three options produces some really horrible results, only the two first options can be used. If you don't want to use any of these, you are stuck with no options.

Printing a non-square photo onto a non-square paper with a different ratio between height and width is not any different from the example with a square photo. You WILL have to cut some of the photo away or accept that it doesn't fill the paper.

 

[RikkFlohr]

or you could just print it and trim off the white borders...

 

[Philippe Coudé du Foresto]

On most printers, setting "bordeless" in the driver implies that the printout will be cropped a bit. This is because pares are not always exactly the same size and the mechanic of the printer is not precise enough to be sure to stop the head career at exactly the edge of the paper. Therefore, to be sure to fill the paper (borderless), the printer prints a bit larger then the paper, hence the small crop.
To be borderless without this small crop, the easiest way is to print with border (as small as possible) and then cut the the border.
An other way is to determine how much your printer will crop when printing borderless, add borders of the same dimension to your print layout and print borderless. That way, only the borders will be cropped. However this is not as precise as cutting borders.