Help a newbie print please

Phil Bennett

Phil Bennett

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Philip
Edit My Images
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Guys

Im a total newbie to printing, so please bear with me. I normally take pics of music gigs around the North East of England for a few friends.

Now, when I edit the pics, like most other, I crop out the distractions, etc and make a decent composition out of it in Photoshop and save the pic. More often than not, the pic ends up not the size of the media, Id like to print to.


If I have a pic original after editing

3736 W * 4270 H
29.54 cm (W) * 45.19 cm (H)


If I was to print this to A4 borderless (use full page), it would print out not utilizing the whole page ie (white lines at the top/bottom

If I was to print this to A4 borderless (fit media), it would print out utilizing the whole page but things cropped out

If I resize the image to A4 210 * 297, the pic, either thins or fattens the subject, it looks wrong.

Sorry if Im not explaining myself properly but any adice would be appreciated.

Phil
 
This subject can get very complicated and needs time to really get into it.
I can give a couple of pointers that may help.

Crop to a ratio of 2.9 x 4.1 - This will give the format to fit A5/A4/A3 etc

Open NEW document in PS ie A4, then drag your image into it (holding down shift key will keep it centre). Doing this at least you will see how the image sits on the page before you print it.

I always get the image to fit what I'm printing to first by (Alt+Ctrl+I) checking image size.

I don't know if this will help, at least it's a start.
 
The way I do it in photoshop, is to edit the image, with a rough idea in mind of where I am going to crop/print to.
Then once finished, save the file.
Then start the crop tool, in the options for the crop tool, you [should] have dimensions for height, width, and pixels per inch. So I entered the details I wanted, 18 in, by 12 in, at 300 dpi
Next click bottom left, and drag to top right. The area which will be cut out will go dark, you can drag corners, and the aspect ratio will be kept constant.
Once you double click (or select the tick) in the image, it will then resize and crop to the correct aspect ratio, pixel width/dots per inch. I then either print, or reduce to 8bits and save as jpeg. Once done that, I then either close, or revert the 8bit conversion.

There are only two ways really of changing the size of the image when it comes out.
Resizing, and if you do not keep the aspect ratio constant, then you get thin people or fat people etc. as you found out.
or
Cropping, it is much better to do this for photoshop (or any printer/printing company) that way you have more control over it.
 
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