Resizing for Snapfish Printing

[MacFly]

hello. i've now come to the point where i'm printing pictures. at this point in time, until i find a less expensive way of printing pix....i'm doing it through Snapfish and picking it up at my local Walgreens. if you have another suggestion for ordering prints, do share.

so i recently uploaded several pix to Snapfish after post processin - color correction, sharpening & adding of border and watermark. pix were shot in .jpeg in L format, no additional resizing was done prior to uploading. when i viewed my order, pix were cut off whether it was 4x6 or 5x7.

question is...what type of resizing do i need to do so that the actual picture being processed will be the actual print - with proper borders and nothing getting cut off?!

thanks in advance!

 

[Scott O]

Hi MacFly and welcome. It would help if you would edit your signature to include basic info about your system and equipment (see mine below). We can better tailor answers that way. Please explain your problem a little more. When you say stuff is getting cut off, are you referring to sides or top? If so then you need to resize for the proportion of your final print. ie. a print sized for 8x1' doesn't translate exactly to 4x6 or 5x7. 8x1' would be 4x5. So you would need to do the crop for the final proportion (not necessarily size as they will do it) of the print you want made. Otherwise Snapfish will just wack a little off the sides or top to make it fit! You can easily do this final crop in the Develop Module as a last step prior to exporting.

 

[Brad Snyder]

And Snapfish/Walgreen's provides a similar tool in their online interface as well.

I'm sure Scott has diagnosed the problem correctly. What camera did you use to take the shots? Most DSLRs shoot a native 2x3(4x6) aspect ratio. Many point and shoots, have a slightly different ratio, on the order of 4x5.5 or so. Where were you cut off, along the narrow or wide edges?

 

[MacFly]

Hi MacFly and welcome. It would help if you would edit your signature to include basic info about your system and equipment (see mine below). We can better tailor answers that way. Please explain your problem a little more. When you say stuff is getting cut off, are you referring to sides or top? If so then you need to resize for the proportion of your final print. ie. a print sized for 8x1' doesn't translate exactly to 4x6 or 5x7. 8x1' would be 4x5. So you would need to do the crop for the final proportion (not necessarily size as they will do it) of the print you want made. Otherwise Snapfish will just wack a little off the sides or top to make it fit! You can easily do this final crop in the Develop Module as a last step prior to exporting.

thanks for the kind welcome.

i've edited my sig, but doesn't seem to be showing. i've checked my options and it's turned on.

when in landscape, both top and bottom (long side) is being cut off, thus my border and watermark is cut off. so when doing the final crop in develope, what should i crop it for 4x6 print size? i'm assuming 4x6?

And Snapfish/Walgreen's provides a similar tool in their online interface as well.

I'm sure Scott has diagnosed the problem correctly. What camera did you use to take the shots? Most DSLRs shoot a native 2x3(4x6) aspect ratio. Many point and shoots, have a slightly different ratio, on the order of 4x5.5 or so. Where were you cut off, along the narrow or wide edges?

i'm shooting with an XSI. shots are cut off on the wide sides.

 

[Brad Snyder]

Hmmm, with the XSi, which is indeed a 4x6 sensor, any aspect ratio induced cropping should actually show up on the short edges. That is, take an in camera (4x6 native) landscape image, and print it at 5x7, 8x1' or 11x14 and it should end up narrower than expected, the right and left edges being cut off.

If you're seeing the tops and bottoms of landscapes being cut-off, I think something else is going on. If you're using Lr's border function, I wonder if Snapfish is misinterpreting the white space surrounding the colored Inner Stroke? I haven't used bordered printing much (maybe never). Maybe someone else has had some experience with it.

 

[Mark Sirota]

I can't speak to Snapfish specifically, but most printers will chop a little off all four sides when printing full-bleed, to ensure that the print goes all the way to the edge of the paper.

If you ask the printer to add a white border, usually they'll print the entire file within that border.

Could that be what's happening here?

 

[MacFly]

Hmmm, with the XSi, which is indeed a 4x6 sensor, any aspect ratio induced cropping should actually show up on the short edges. That is, take an in camera (4x6 native) landscape image, and print it at 5x7, 8x1' or 11x14 and it should end up narrower than expected, the right and left edges being cut off.

If you're seeing the tops and bottoms of landscapes being cut-off, I think something else is going on. If you're using Lr's border function, I wonder if Snapfish is misinterpreting the white space surrounding the colored Inner Stroke? I haven't used bordered printing much (maybe never). Maybe someone else has had some experience with it.

i'm using Mogrify LR2 to add both border and watermark to my exported images.

would i be better off not exporting with a border since the room for printing error is so small?!

I can't speak to Snapfish specifically, but most printers will chop a little off all four sides when printing full-bleed, to ensure that the print goes all the way to the edge of the paper.

If you ask the printer to add a white border, usually they'll print the entire file within that border.

Could that be what's happening here?

i'm thinkin' of having snapfish add the white border themselves rather than me during the export process.

 

[Brad Snyder]

Yes, as usual, Mark gives excellent advice. You can't rely on this modern high-speed machinery, especially a consumer-driven lab, to be accurate to that degree. I don't know if Snapfish offers that border option, but if not, pehaps you can add an additional white border with Mogrify.

Optional reading:
Musings on this problem, without actual experimenting.

Lets assume we have an original 4x6 landscape image, using round numbers it's 8'' pixels tall and 12'' pixels wide. Now, let's use Mogrify to slap on a 4' pixel border all the way around. Mogrify adds the pixels, without resizing the original, so now our image is 88' tall by 128' wide. If you do the math, 4x6 = 1.5 aspect ratio. 88'x128' = 1.455.

This difference is subtle, but it implies that the landscape image is just a bit taller compared to its width, than a 4x6. That further implies that an exact 4x6 print would cut off the top and bottom (i.e., the long edges). That's why I asked about your production method. I assumed that Lr would preserve the aspect ratio as an output, but that Mogrify, being a post-process, would not.

Total thought experiment, with no actual evidence, but makes sense to me.

 

[MacFly]

thank you all for your help. it seems as if i've mastered the cropping of 4x6 prints, but now i can't get the proper cropping for 5x7.

snapfish is cutting the prints off at the sides of a landscape photor (short side).

does this mean i need to crop pictures two different ways for 4x6 and 5x7 printing?!

 

[Kiwigeoff]

Yep, think of them as ratios as that is what they really are.
6x4 =3:2
7x5 = 3.5:2.5 or 2.8:2

What I do is make Virtual Copies for different aspect crops.
Exporting will be the same just set the long side as 7"instead of 6" and ppi as needed.

 

[Brad Snyder]

As Geoff correctly says,

Yes, if it's cutting the short edges off, that implies a crop 'mis-fit'.
All of those common sizes are rectangles, but each of the rectangles is a slightly different shape, due to the different proportions, ranging from more 'rectangular' to more 'square'.

I prefer to look at it upside-down compared to Geoff (insert southern hemisphere joke here)

let's say we have landscapes: (sorry the forum's mangling my column formatting)
4x6 = 1.5 ---------- it's 5'% wider than it is tall (very rectangular)
5x7 = 1.4 -------------- 4'%
8x1' = 1.25 ------------- 25% (almost square)
11X14= 1.273 ----------- 27% (again, close to square)

Given this you can see that a 4x6 shape plopped down on a 5x7 print will have have about 7% cut off of the left and right sides total (assuming landscape).

As Geoff says, most folks use VCs to handle differing crops for each image. Imagine the set of photos in a 'family pack' with 4 or 5 different enlargements in varying quantities. Each enlargement has to be individually cropped to account for these differences.

There are common cameras that shoot 4:3 images, and point and shoots are different still.

 

[MacFly]

Yep, think of them as ratios as that is what they really are.
6x4 =3:2
7x5 = 3.5:2.5 or 2.8:2

What I do is make Virtual Copies for different aspect crops.
Exporting will be the same just set the long side as 7"instead of 6" and ppi as needed.

As Geoff correctly says,

Yes, if it's cutting the short edges off, that implies a crop 'mis-fit'.
All of those common sizes are rectangles, but each of the rectangles is a slightly different shape, due to the different proportions, ranging from more 'rectangular' to more 'square'.

I prefer to look at it upside-down compared to Geoff (insert southern hemisphere joke here)

let's say we have landscapes: (sorry the forum's mangling my column formatting)
4x6 = 1.5 ---------- it's 5'% wider than it is tall (very rectangular)
5x7 = 1.4 -------------- 4'%
8x1' = 1.25 ------------- 25% (almost square)
11X14= 1.273 ----------- 27% (again, close to square)

Given this you can see that a 4x6 shape plopped down on a 5x7 print will have have about 7% cut off of the left and right sides total (assuming landscape).

As Geoff says, most folks use VCs to handle differing crops for each image. Imagine the set of photos in a 'family pack' with 4 or 5 different enlargements in varying quantities. Each enlargement has to be individually cropped to account for these differences.

There are common cameras that shoot 4:3 images, and point and shoots are different still.

thanks gents!

so let me understand "virtual copies"......is making multiple cropped copies for each print?!

so when i'm in "export", can you tell me the exact dimensions to resize? i'm a bit confused with "in" vs. "pixels" vs. "cm". do i check "don't enlarge"? as of right now, i export at 3'' dpi.

i truly appreciate all of your help. i thank you for your patience.

 

[Kiwigeoff]

thanks gents!

so let me understand "virtual copies"......is making multiple cropped copies for each print?!

so when i'm in "export", can you tell me the exact dimensions to resize? i'm a bit confused with "in" vs. "pixels" vs. "cm". do i check "don't enlarge"? as of right now, i export at 3'' dpi.

i truly appreciate all of your help. i thank you for your patience.

Yes make a Virtual Copy for each crop you require of each image. You can keep them in collections such as 7x7 prints, 6x4 prints.

Now when you export you will need to set Five things in the Image Sizing Menu:
1. Check the box "Resize to Fit"
2. Select "Long Edge"
3. Check or uncheck "Don't Enlarge - this should be self explanatory.
4. Then you set the Long Edge Dimensions, Here you would be best to start with what you feel most at home with, either inches or cm. So for a 6x4" (15x1'cm) print set six inches
5,"Resolution" - well you know that you want 3'' pixels per inch.

You ought to be go from there. Don't forget to set jpeg an most likely sRGB above the image sizing though.
Also check with your print shop what they want as far as colour space (sRGB, etc) and resolution (Pixels per inch)

 

[MacFly]

Yes make a Virtual Copy for each crop you require of each image. You can keep them in collections such as 7x7 prints, 6x4 prints.

Now when you export you will need to set Five things in the Image Sizing Menu:
1. Check the box "Resize to Fit"
2. Select "Long Edge"
3. Check or uncheck "Don't Enlarge - this should be self explanatory.
4. Then you set the Long Edge Dimensions, Here you would be best to start with what you feel most at home with, either inches or cm. So for a 6x4" (15x1'cm) print set six inches
5,"Resolution" - well you know that you want 3'' pixels per inch.

You ought to be go from there. Don't forget to set jpeg an most likely sRGB above the image sizing though.
Also check with your print shop what they want as far as colour space (sRGB, etc) and resolution (Pixels per inch)

this sounds good. i can also rename each phone and tag it with the cropped sized, thus making it easy to select for printing.

excuse my ignorance, but "don't enlarge"....can you explain, not so self explanatory to me!lol....i'm confused as to what ramification enlarging or not enlarging the image.

 

[Kiwigeoff]

"Don't Enlarge" checked means if a file is smaller than what you are sizing to it will not enlarge it.
This is useful if exporting out group of images of various original sizes.
If "Don't Enlarge" is not checked then smaller files will be enlarge to the specified size which can lead to degradation.

 

[Denis Pagé]

MacFly, I juste wrote a Tip & Trick for you (and the others as well...)_

question is...what type of resizing do i need to do so that the actual picture being processed will be the actual print - with proper borders and nothing getting cut off?!

thanks in advance!