Saturday, December 25, 2010

Off With Their Heads!

So I know some of you have been here before.  You're at a photo kiosk or ordering prints online.  The pics look great just the way they are and you don't want to touch a thing.  But when you go to collect your photos Uncle Bob's head is cut off at the top of the picture.  What is going on?

Is it something you did?  Is it the printer? The program? The photo center staff?

The truth is there is a little known secret.  And that is that the 4"x6" size is the standard size for 35mm film.  A digital camera takes a picture at another size - about 4"x5.3".  This means when the picture is "enlarged" to fit the standard 4"x6" size some trimming does occur.

But the picture didn't look cropped on the screen.  

No it didn't.  The programs often show you the picture exactly as you took it - and not how they are cropping it for printing until you take it in to the Edit screen.

I don't think the program was designed to be intentionally misleading - I just don't think the designers of the programs realized how angry people will get over their photos.  Whether printing just 1 or 300, no-one wants anyone missing heads or limbs in their pictures.

The safest thing to do is to make sure there is some room between the top of your picture and the top of the subject in your picture.  The other alternative is that you will have to take EVERY picture you are printing in to the Edit screen and adjust it so that everyone and everything fits into the box and looks the way that you want it to.

If you have any questions please feel free to leave them in the comments and I will answer them to the best of my ability.

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