Which printing service crops the least?

Which photo printing service crops the least?

I crop as I shoot and I'm disappointed to lose any of the image in
the print. Walmart.com took off about 6% lengthwise from the batch
of 4x6's they just printed for me. When shooting indoors at the
wide limit of my zoom, I really don't want to lose anything.
Maybe I should just add a small border with a photo editor.

Andrew

Andrew wrote:

Which photo printing service crops the least?

I don't have a whole lot of experience with Noritsu digital minilabs,
but I can say definitively that Frontier crops worse than Agfa d-Lab,
if you can find a d-Lab.

I crop as I shoot and I'm disappointed to lose any of the image in
the print. Walmart.com took off about 6% lengthwise from the batch
of 4x6's they just printed for me. When shooting indoors at the
wide limit of my zoom, I really don't want to lose anything.
Maybe I should just add a small border with a photo editor.

Dontcha hate it when that happens?

Maybe you can clone out the edges. Since one never knows
exactly how a Frontier digiminilab will crop an image, seems like
putting a white border around the outside is inadvisable.

Here's a website that recommends 307 dpi for Frontier images,
perhaps so the extra 7 dpi can get cropped off:
http://www.winkflash.com/content/pros.asp

Bill Tuthill wrote:
Andrew wrote:

Which photo printing service crops the least?

I don't have a whole lot of experience with Noritsu digital minilabs,
but I can say definitively that Frontier crops worse than Agfa d-Lab,
if you can find a d-Lab.

I crop as I shoot and I'm disappointed to lose any of the image in
the print. Walmart.com took off about 6% lengthwise from the batch
of 4x6's they just printed for me. When shooting indoors at the
wide limit of my zoom, I really don't want to lose anything.
Maybe I should just add a small border with a photo editor.

Dontcha hate it when that happens?

Maybe you can clone out the edges. Since one never knows
exactly how a Frontier digiminilab will crop an image, seems like
putting a white border around the outside is inadvisable.

Here's a website that recommends 307 dpi for Frontier images,
perhaps so the extra 7 dpi can get cropped off:
http://www.winkflash.com/content/pros.asp

Something I have always disliked about cheap printing places, you have
no real control over the printing. Get yourself an Epson R300 printer
and print for yourself, yes it is not as cheap as a Walmart print but
almost and more important you have some control. Prints from this
printer are excellent. But if you don't like modern inkjet (far better
than even 2 years ago). Kodak make an 8.5 x 11 dyesub for around $500
(model 1400) or if you just want 4x6 there are several 4x6 dyesub
printers on the market. If you go for cheap that is what you get
-cheap-.

Tom

"tomm101" wrote in message
oups.com...

Bill Tuthill wrote:
Andrew wrote:

Which photo printing service crops the least?

I don't have a whole lot of experience with Noritsu digital minilabs,
but I can say definitively that Frontier crops worse than Agfa d-Lab,
if you can find a d-Lab.

I crop as I shoot and I'm disappointed to lose any of the image in
the print. Walmart.com took off about 6% lengthwise from the batch
of 4x6's they just printed for me. When shooting indoors at the
wide limit of my zoom, I really don't want to lose anything.
Maybe I should just add a small border with a photo editor.

Dontcha hate it when that happens?

Maybe you can clone out the edges. Since one never knows
exactly how a Frontier digiminilab will crop an image, seems like
putting a white border around the outside is inadvisable.

Here's a website that recommends 307 dpi for Frontier images,
perhaps so the extra 7 dpi can get cropped off:
http://www.winkflash.com/content/pros.asp

Something I have always disliked about cheap printing places, you have
no real control over the printing. Get yourself an Epson R300 printer
and print for yourself, yes it is not as cheap as a Walmart print but
almost and more important you have some control. Prints from this
printer are excellent. But if you don't like modern inkjet (far better
than even 2 years ago). Kodak make an 8.5 x 11 dyesub for around $500
(model 1400) or if you just want 4x6 there are several 4x6 dyesub
printers on the market. If you go for cheap that is what you get
-cheap-.

Tom

Both YorkPhoto and WinkFlash seem to take equal amount off top and bottom if
I submit a 1.3 ratio image for printing to 4x6. If I remember to crop to
correct ratio (which I normally only do if doing some other touch-up), they
seem to reproduce a print which is very close to what I submit.
My complaint is neither irfanview or my PhotoPlus are as helpful as they
could be. I'll forgive irfanview since that is freeware. What I would like
to see is when I click on the crop tool, I get a drop down list of common
formats (4x6, 5x7 etc) and an unspecified or freehand crop. The common
formats would maintain the aspect ratio when resizing.
Kodak do something like this with a shareware editor as does the resizing on
their kiosk. Don't use and can't afford PhotoShop, so not sure what that
does.
By the way, if you get your prints from one of the stores which let you
upload the pics, they give you a resizeable frame which should show exactly
what will print.
Dave Cohen

"Dave Cohen" wrote in message
ink.net...

"tomm101" wrote in message
oups.com...

Bill Tuthill wrote:
Andrew wrote:

Which photo printing service crops the least?

I don't have a whole lot of experience with Noritsu digital minilabs,
but I can say definitively that Frontier crops worse than Agfa d-Lab,
if you can find a d-Lab.

I crop as I shoot and I'm disappointed to lose any of the image in
the print. Walmart.com took off about 6% lengthwise from the batch
of 4x6's they just printed for me. When shooting indoors at the
wide limit of my zoom, I really don't want to lose anything.
Maybe I should just add a small border with a photo editor.

Dontcha hate it when that happens?

Maybe you can clone out the edges. Since one never knows
exactly how a Frontier digiminilab will crop an image, seems like
putting a white border around the outside is inadvisable.

Here's a website that recommends 307 dpi for Frontier images,
perhaps so the extra 7 dpi can get cropped off:
http://www.winkflash.com/content/pros.asp

Something I have always disliked about cheap printing places, you have
no real control over the printing. Get yourself an Epson R300 printer
and print for yourself, yes it is not as cheap as a Walmart print but
almost and more important you have some control. Prints from this
printer are excellent. But if you don't like modern inkjet (far better
than even 2 years ago). Kodak make an 8.5 x 11 dyesub for around $500
(model 1400) or if you just want 4x6 there are several 4x6 dyesub
printers on the market. If you go for cheap that is what you get
-cheap-.

Tom

Both YorkPhoto and WinkFlash seem to take equal amount off top and bottom
if I submit a 1.3 ratio image for printing to 4x6. If I remember to crop
to correct ratio (which I normally only do if doing some other touch-up),
they seem to reproduce a print which is very close to what I submit.
My complaint is neither irfanview or my PhotoPlus are as helpful as they
could be. I'll forgive irfanview since that is freeware. What I would like
to see is when I click on the crop tool, I get a drop down list of common
formats (4x6, 5x7 etc) and an unspecified or freehand crop. The common
formats would maintain the aspect ratio when resizing.
Kodak do something like this with a shareware editor as does the resizing
on their kiosk. Don't use and can't afford PhotoShop, so not sure what
that does.
By the way, if you get your prints from one of the stores which let you
upload the pics, they give you a resizeable frame which should show
exactly what will print.
Dave Cohen
Forgot to mention, the online providers (at least those above), also let you
edit, so you should get exactly what you submit.
Dave Cohen

Dave Cohen wrote:

My complaint is neither irfanview or my PhotoPlus are as helpful as they
could be. I'll forgive irfanview since that is freeware. What I would like
to see is when I click on the crop tool, I get a drop down list of common
formats (4x6, 5x7 etc) and an unspecified or freehand crop. The common
formats would maintain the aspect ratio when resizing.

You can do this in Irfanview. Select Edit, Create Custom Selection
(Shift-C). This lets you choose the aspect ratio. Then you can resize
the selection box without changing aspect ratio by holding down the
ctrl key. You can move the selection box around the the image. This is
explained on the Custom Selection dialog.

T.

tomm101 wrote:

Something I have always disliked about cheap printing places, you have
no real control over the printing. Get yourself an Epson R300 printer
and print for yourself, yes it is not as cheap as a Walmart print but
almost and more important you have some control. Prints from this
printer are excellent...

I will never buy another inkjet printer that makes photo print-outs
that fade within a few years. I'm tired of looking at faded prints,
I'm tired of deciding when they need to be reprinted, I'm tired of
making replacement prints, and I'm tired of feeling guilty about
giving fading prints to friends.

So I would buy an R1800, I guess. However as you can tell from above,
I'm not a happy Epson customer, and feel reluctant to spend more money
on a new printer and their freakishly overpriced ink.

Dave Cohen wrote:

Both YorkPhoto and WinkFlash seem to take equal amount off top and bottom if
I submit a 1.3 ratio image for printing to 4x6.

However (if I understand you correctly) a 1.3 ratio image would be 390 dpi,
not the 307 dpi recommended by winkflash.com.

If I remember to crop to correct ratio (which I normally only do
if doing some other touch-up), they seem to reproduce a print which is
very close to what I submit.

Longs Drugs does not do this; they drop unpredictably. Guess I should
try Winkflash or York Photo.

Don't use and can't afford PhotoShop, so not sure what that does.

Photoshop has a lot of weird irrelevant DPI stuff to confuse you.
It's also poor at editing JPEG compared to GIMP and maybe other editors.