Print Dimensions

[Robert Boire]

Hi,

I have some elementary questions on print sizes that I am trying to understand.

1. My digital photographs have an aspect ratio (3:2) different from all available
paper sizes (except 4x6). When I select "scale to fit media" in Photoshop there are
inevitably  blank areas. Is there a way to resize and fill the entire surface without
distortion or loosing part of the image? I can manually adjust height and width but then inevitably loose part of the image.

2.Why are all paper manufacturers (or at least the ones I know of) using 8.5x11 when it seems the natural aspect ratio to match a digital image should be 8x12?

3. It seems that  (margins when not printing borderless)for a particular size of paper
are predetermined. How are they determined and can they be changed?

4.Does borderless printing change the aspect ratio or just artificially increase the
size of the printed image?

If  anybody has a useful link it would be appreciated.

Thanks

[neile]

Fo #1, there's really no magic here. If you want to change the aspect ratio of your image to fit a particular paper size then you have to crop the image. There's no way around it.

For #2, I believe it's just historical inertia.

For #3, if you mean on the printer the minimum margin it accepts, that's usually due to the inner workings of the printer and how it feeds the paper. On my Canon ipf5100, the minimum margin is 3mm all around. If I want borderless I have to use roll paper.

Neil

[PeterAit]

You must realize that not all cameras have a 3:2 aspect ratio. My Panasonic G2 is 4:3, for example.

Your margins are determined by the paper size and the image size.

[Ken Bennett]

Sorry, neile is right, there is no good answer to this. You can either print the entire image area and get large odd white borders, or crop the image to fit the paper size.

Some cameras offer a viewing screen with etched lines showing the 5:4 ratio of an 8x10 or 16x20 inch print. When I used to shoot with a 6x6 cm medium format camera, I would use small bits of tape to show that ratio in the finder. This lets one compose the image to fit the final print dimensions, if one desires to do that.

[RHPS]

2.Why are all paper manufacturers (or at least the ones I know of) using 8.5x11 when it seems the natural aspect ratio to match a digital image should be 8x12?

It's more of a regional thing. If you are outside the USA you are more likely to find ISO "A" sizes which are close to 3:2 aspect ratio, from the smallest to the largest.

[Geoff Wittig]

Just wait till you try stitching and printing images with arbitrary aspect ratios.

For single-capture images, it makes sense to standardize on a couple of print sizes and simply get used to wasting a bit of paper if you're using sheet paper, other than 13x19" sheets which nicely accommodate a 12x18" print.

Roll paper simplifies things a bit, because you can print across the roll as wide as you can go, and choose a custom paper size to minimize waste.