digital MP filesize vs output

- Bobb - wrote:

If anyone took offense I'm sorry.
My point was just that :
If I was a sales rep with Kodak, ( or any paper company) I would
make/sell
paper to fit aspect ratio of digital cameras since the majority of
people now use them exclusively.
That's all

I use an online printing service (http://www.photobox.co.uk) that offers
a 6"x4.5" format (amongst others) for their standard prints, which I use
for most of the shots I take on my 4:3 format cameras. They also offer
a variety of larger sizes at different aspect ratios, and when making
larger prints, I chose whatever's appropriate for that particular image.

They airmail the prints to anywhere in the world, however, I'd be
surprised if there isn't a service more local to you that offers similar
options.
--
Alex Monro
Exeter, UK
Running on Linux (Kubuntu 7.1)

David J Taylor wrote:
J. Clarke wrote:
[]
If you were printing from a slide you'd still need to crop it to
fit
the paper, or tell the lab where to crop, or compose for the paper
knowing full well that part of the image was going to go away.

The shop I would most likely use offers 6 x 4 inch and 9 x 6 inch.
No
need to crop from a 3:2 aspect ratio slide.

http://www.jpics.co.uk/prints.htm

So how does that help the OP with his point-and-shoot get a decent
print out of the drug store?

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

J. Clarke wrote:
David J Taylor wrote:
J. Clarke wrote:
[]
If you were printing from a slide you'd still need to crop it to
fit
the paper, or tell the lab where to crop, or compose for the paper
knowing full well that part of the image was going to go away.

The shop I would most likely use offers 6 x 4 inch and 9 x 6 inch.
No
need to crop from a 3:2 aspect ratio slide.

http://www.jpics.co.uk/prints.htm

So how does that help the OP with his point-and-shoot get a decent
print out of the drug store?

John,

It was a reply to your comment about not being able to get 3:2 aspect
ratio prints without cropping.

One place in the UK offers online prints at 4:3 without cropping as well:

http://www.photobox.co.uk/shop/prints/standard-prints

High street stores here such as Boots in the UK also offer 4:3 prints:

http://www.bootsphoto.com/shop/prints/standard-prints

(which looks remarkably similar!).

Cheers,
David

"- Bobb -" wrote in message
...

"Jürgen Exner" wrote in message
...
"- Bobb -" wrote:
Perhaps this is obvious to everyone here, but to JUST take a photo and
print it on 4x6 - and SEE all of the original photo, what's the trick ?

Very simple: you need a camera with an aspect ratio of 1:1.5.

I've got SIMPLE digital cameras ( Kodak, Sony) and until now didn't want
to print any 4x6's , but now that I do want to do it, I noticed that the
pictures were clipped.

There are three options for photos with non-matching aspect ratios :
- clip/crop those edges, that extend beyond the desired ratio.
- fill in those areas, that don't extend to the desired ratio (aka
letter boxing)
- distort the photo by stretching it to match the new aspect ratio

There simply are no other options to fit a square peg into a round hole.

jue

If anyone took offense I'm sorry.
My point was just that :
If I was a sales rep with Kodak, ( or any paper company) I would make/sell
paper to fit aspect ratio of digital cameras since the majority of people
now use them exclusively.
That's all



It is a great pity you never bothered reading too many of the responses.

You are still saying Digital Cameras as if they were all 4 x 3 ratio, and as
if only digital cameras had problems with 6 x 4 paper.

Your photo problem now seems to be with who-ever you use to make prints.
All the commercial print machines use rolls of paper, so they could be set
to produce whatever print ratio their owner/operator chooses.

Roy G

Roy G wrote:

If you enlarge your image so that the short side is 4 inches, then the long
side will be around 5.3 inches, so you will have roughly half an inch of
white paper showing at either end.

A sharp X-acto knife and a ruler fixes that.

You have to choose which way you want to go.

This is not a new problem, and has applied since the very early days of film
cameras. Paper ratios practically never match image ratios.

Most serious amateurs had paper trimmers, and many had adjustable border
printing frames that would change to any desired aspect ratio, even an
arbitrarily cropped one. The paper trimmer would then even up the borders.

Roy G

- Bobb - wrote:

I'm not being a wise-guy , but is there a reason for that ?
I can't imagine that ... way back when , someone said - I've developed a
(digital) camera that uses 4x3 aspect ratio , but let's NOT make paper
for it ? At CVS they have several Kodak kiosks - none have paper for 4x3
. They make money from film,paper .... but do not want to make paper to
fit every digital camera in the world ??? Strange.

Virtually every film size had its own aspect ratio- just the way film
evolved. Printing paper originally was offered for contact printing of
the larger format films, though 4 x 6 print does NOT match 4 x 5, the
closest film size. So there never really was a standard.

Most digital print sizes are the same as film print paper sizes,
though there is no real reason for this and it is starting to change. 8
x 12 prints are now available- do not remember ever seeing those before.
I expect someone will offer a 4:3 paper in a printer and supply a
corresponding paper, in a size somewhat comparable to a 4 x 6 size.

David J. Littleboy wrote:
"David J Taylor"
wrote:
J. Clarke wrote:
[]
There's a reason that professional photographers don't print right out
of the camera. Use Photoshop Elements or whatever other software you
choose to edit the image to the format you need before you send it out
to print.
.. although as an amateur who took slides, rather than prints, in the
pre-digital age, I still try to get the image right in the camera, and
without post-processing. This minimises the work, as, well, and allows
you to concentrate your post-processing time on images which really need
it.

It also captures better images, _even if one only shoots raw_.

DSLRs have quite decent dynamic ranges, but it still helps to place the main
parts of the image optimally in the histogram, since then you can use the
extremes of the range for better highlight/shadow rendering instead of for
rescuing one's bad exposures.


Unfortunately, we do not have a way to output such dynamic range today.
I LOVED transparencies shown in a darkened room! I suppose we can
print transparencies from a digital file on a good CRT screen printer.
Anyone know what dynamic range these screen printers provide? I still
have my carousel projector and several trays :-)

Don Stauffer wrote:
David J. Littleboy wrote:
"David J Taylor"
wrote:
J. Clarke wrote:
[]
There's a reason that professional photographers don't print right out
of the camera. Use Photoshop Elements or whatever other software you
choose to edit the image to the format you need before you send it out
to print.
.. although as an amateur who took slides, rather than prints, in the
pre-digital age, I still try to get the image right in the camera,
and without post-processing. This minimises the work, as, well, and
allows you to concentrate your post-processing time on images which
really need it.

It also captures better images, _even if one only shoots raw_.

DSLRs have quite decent dynamic ranges, but it still helps to place
the main parts of the image optimally in the histogram, since then you
can use the extremes of the range for better highlight/shadow
rendering instead of for rescuing one's bad exposures.


Unfortunately, we do not have a way to output such dynamic range today.

Projector attached to computer. Make sure the Megapixel count is high
enough to display properly.

I LOVED transparencies shown in a darkened room! I suppose we can
print transparencies from a digital file on a good CRT screen printer.
Anyone know what dynamic range these screen printers provide? I still
have my carousel projector and several trays :-)

You can print transparancies from an inkjet printer, but I wouldn't. I
dunno what you mean by a screen printer.
--
John McWilliams

Roy G wrote:
"- Bobb -" wrote in message
...
I've been reading online for a simple answer to this and cannot find it:
any advice/pointers ?


Hi.

There is no really easy answer.

Your camera takes pictures in 4 x 3 aspect ratio.

The paper is 6 x 4 aspect ratio.

If you enlarge your image so that the long side is 6 inches the short sides
will be 4.5 inches. Print that onto 6 x 4 paper and you lose a half inch of
image.

If you enlarge your image so that the short side is 4 inches, then the long
side will be around 5.3 inches, so you will have roughly half an inch of
white paper showing at either end.

You have to choose which way you want to go.

This is not a new problem, and has applied since the very early days of film
cameras. Paper ratios practically never match image ratios.

Roy G


And the fix is to crop the photo to the aspect ratio of the
print.

Jürgen Exner wrote:
"- Bobb -" wrote:
Perhaps this is obvious to everyone here, but to JUST take a photo and
print it on 4x6 - and SEE all of the original photo, what's the trick ?

Very simple: you need a camera with an aspect ratio of 1:1.5.

I've got SIMPLE digital cameras ( Kodak, Sony) and until now didn't want
to print any 4x6's , but now that I do want to do it, I noticed that the
pictures were clipped.

There are three options for photos with non-matching aspect ratios :
- clip/crop those edges, that extend beyond the desired ratio.
- fill in those areas, that don't extend to the desired ratio (aka
letter boxing)
- distort the photo by stretching it to match the new aspect ratio

There simply are no other options to fit a square peg into a round hole.

As already said ...

When you have film developed and printed (for 35mm, 3:2) you can have
prints delivered in 4x6", 8x12", 10x15", etc.

However, for the printer market, it is mainly paper sized per the
non-photo printing industry. (And some odd sizes like the sheets of 13"
x 19" ... [330 x 483]).


--
-- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm
-- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm
-- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin
-- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch.
-- usenet posts from gmail.com and googlemail.com are filtered out.