I have a Kodak DC215 Zoom digital camera. I can shoot, do slide shows, email .jpgs, enhance and resize with Adobe Photoshop, etc.
But something embarrassingly simple must be eluding me when it comes to printing. I feel like a moron. The images captured are so large that when I print them, I can only use 8.5 x 11 photo paper or else the pic gets cropped (usually). I’d like to be able to use my 4x6 photo paper, but only a bit of the picture ever shows up on it and then it is wasted. And expensive.
I have a photo album at http://www.zing.com and have had some prints done by them. But the other day I ordered 3 prints of my old car and my new one; and, apparently, my images were so big and so long that when my 5x7 pix arrived, all that was in each pic was the middle of the car. Previous vacation pics came out okay, but they weren’t nearly as long.
Is there a way that I can “squeeze” the images down to a manageable/reproduceable size? Trimming doesn’t seem to do it.
What am I missing???
The camera or origin of the file does not matter. I do not know Photoshop so I will just give you general ideas while someone else comes along. I do use Adobe Photodeluxe
The printed size depends on TWO parameters: One is the size of the picture in pixels and the ither is the resolution in DPI (pixels per inch) you should be able to set those two somewhere. IF you cannot find the DPI setting you may just want to reduce the absolute size in pixels of the picture.
Adobe photodeluxe lets you set any of the three but, of course, when you set two, the third is determined.
if the picture is 1000 pixels across and you choose 200 DPI, then it will be 5" on paper. But you can choose 1000 pixels and 5" and it will calculate the DPI etc.
Another thing you can do is import the photo to a word processor as this lets you resize it and you can see what it looks like before printing. It is a bit of a hassle but it works.
Sailor is correct. Now, for some Photoshop-specific details:
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[li]Follow the Image -> Image Size menu, and you will see a dialog box that contains information on both the picture’s pixel dimensions and the printing resolution (under Document Size).[/li][li]Professional service bureaus often print at 300 DPI. If you’re going to print the pictures yourself, check your printer’s manual to see what it says.[/li][li]If you need to change the print resolution in Photoshop to match that of your output device, first uncheck the Resample Image button so that your original pixel dimensions are preserved.[/li]Once that’s done, re-check the Resample Image button and type in the document width/height in inches. Photoshop will then resize the pixel dimensions to fit.
MS Office has a very nice, fairly powerful and easy to use image editor hidden in the “office tools” portion of the disk 1 install CD called “Microsoft Photo Editor”.
You have to go into the “office tools” sub-section and direct that it be installed on your PC as it does not initally auto install along with the rest of the suite (ie word, excel etc).
The printing module portion of this program allows automatic centering, scaling, sizing, placement etc of the image on the chosen paper size and it does it automatically instead of making you keep cropping until it fits like some other image programs make you do. If you can get ahold of MS Office Suite CD(s) it would be worth installing and trying it.
Each program has its specific purpose and most programs can print but that is not their forte. OTOH a word processor is the one that best interacts with the printer. It’s a hassle but if you just need one or two, then you can import them into Word and mess all you want before you print and you know exactly what you are getting.
I do this all the time with different programs. I may use the browser for HTML pages but I import them to word for printing, and the same with other programs. Their print functions suck.
Import a photo to Word and you can resize it, place it anywhere n the sheet, add text, etc.
I’m kinda having the same problem trying to change a pic from 50K to less than 7K.
A suggestion I would make for you is to do what these other people have said but a simpler way might be to print a test page on a regular blank sheet of paper then adjust it accordingly before you print it on the photo paper.
The images captured are so large that when I print them, I can only use 8.5 x 11 photo paper or else the pic gets cropped (usually). I’d like to be able to use my 4x6 photo paper, but only a bit of the picture ever shows up on it and then it is wasted. And expensive.