What with printing?

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

Hi All,
I'm new to digital photography. Whats with the heads and feet
being cut off of my prints?. The image in the view finder is not the
finished product? Any help on how to frame images for print? I have a
Fuji S5100. Thanks in advance...!

Tony

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

On 28 Jun 2005 19:10:51 -0700, harmoncove@yahoo.com wrote:

> I'm new to digital photography. Whats with the heads and feet
> being cut off of my prints?. The image in the view finder is not the
> finished product? Any help on how to frame images for print? I have a
> Fuji S5100. Thanks in advance...!

There's good news and bad news. The good news is that Fuji's
S5100 is one of the few non-DSLRs that accurately show in the
viewfinder what will appear in the image file. Take a look at the
files on your computer and you'll probably see the heads and feet
were not actually cut off. The bad news is that the camera's sensor
(not just the S5100, but almost all cameras) has a height/width
ratio that is not the same as the paper commonly used to make the
prints. So the printer usually crops a bit of the top and bottom of
the image when the print is made. It's possible to fit the entire
image in the print, but then the image on the paper will be slightly
smaller, and you'll have to accept a larger white border on the left
and right sides of the print. This usually doesn't go over very
well if borderless prints are expected. There's a special size
paper that you can request from photo labs (I don't recall its
designation) that's slightly narrower than 6", that avoids crop
loss.

To provide a concrete example, the S5100's 4mp resolution is
2272x1704 pixels, which is a 4/3 ratio. If pictures taken at this
resolution were printed on 6" wide paper, to keep from from losing
any part of the image, the paper would have to be 4.5" high. But
the common paper print size is 4"x6", so 0.5" is lost when printing
with that size paper. I have a portable 4"x6" printer, and just the
other day make a print that decapitated someone in the upper part of
the picture (and it happened to have been shot with an S5100 too!).
Fortunately, the printer has the ability to shift and/or crop
images, so I made another print, this time cutting off the bottom
1/2" instead, which contained nothing of interest.

Many other P&S cameras won't appear to have the problem that you
noticed, because their viewfinders don't show exactly what will be
captured in the shots. They show only 90%, 85%, sometimes even
less, of what will actually be in the image. So what gets
truncated when prints are made probably wasn't even visible in the
viewfinder when the camera took the pictures. That may keep a
couple of ears and toes from being cut off in prints, but the price
paid is that of not being able to utilize the entire frame, wasting
part of the sensor's valuable real estate. It would be a nice
feature to have if the camera's viewfinder (both optical and EVF)
and the LCD could superimpose a thin frame showing where cropping
might occur when printing with standard paper sizes such as 4"x6",
5"x7" and 8"x10". That way you could insure that no nasty cropping
would occur at the time you take the picture, not later, at print
time when it's more difficult to deal with.

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

This past winter I got an Epson 2200 printer and was pleased to learn that I
could print full frame and things got real interesting. I went through some
older shots that I had not printed because important parts would have been
lost. I print on 13x19 arts paper...but I print 12.25 x 16.25 so that off
the shelf 16x20 frames and mats would be available...and by luck found that
I was able to use everything I shot.

"ASAAR" <caught@22.com> wrote in message
news:up14c196rbaj945m1jjof4ikfhbanda9pf@4ax.com...
> On 28 Jun 2005 19:10:51 -0700, harmoncove@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> > I'm new to digital photography. Whats with the heads and feet
> > being cut off of my prints?. The image in the view finder is not the
> > finished product? Any help on how to frame images for print? I have a
> > Fuji S5100. Thanks in advance...!
>
> There's good news and bad news. The good news is that Fuji's
> S5100 is one of the few non-DSLRs that accurately show in the
> viewfinder what will appear in the image file. Take a look at the
> files on your computer and you'll probably see the heads and feet
> were not actually cut off. The bad news is that the camera's sensor
> (not just the S5100, but almost all cameras) has a height/width
> ratio that is not the same as the paper commonly used to make the
> prints. So the printer usually crops a bit of the top and bottom of
> the image when the print is made. It's possible to fit the entire
> image in the print, but then the image on the paper will be slightly
> smaller, and you'll have to accept a larger white border on the left
> and right sides of the print. This usually doesn't go over very
> well if borderless prints are expected. There's a special size
> paper that you can request from photo labs (I don't recall its
> designation) that's slightly narrower than 6", that avoids crop
> loss.
>
> To provide a concrete example, the S5100's 4mp resolution is
> 2272x1704 pixels, which is a 4/3 ratio. If pictures taken at this
> resolution were printed on 6" wide paper, to keep from from losing
> any part of the image, the paper would have to be 4.5" high. But
> the common paper print size is 4"x6", so 0.5" is lost when printing
> with that size paper. I have a portable 4"x6" printer, and just the
> other day make a print that decapitated someone in the upper part of
> the picture (and it happened to have been shot with an S5100 too!).
> Fortunately, the printer has the ability to shift and/or crop
> images, so I made another print, this time cutting off the bottom
> 1/2" instead, which contained nothing of interest.
>
> Many other P&S cameras won't appear to have the problem that you
> noticed, because their viewfinders don't show exactly what will be
> captured in the shots. They show only 90%, 85%, sometimes even
> less, of what will actually be in the image. So what gets
> truncated when prints are made probably wasn't even visible in the
> viewfinder when the camera took the pictures. That may keep a
> couple of ears and toes from being cut off in prints, but the price
> paid is that of not being able to utilize the entire frame, wasting
> part of the sensor's valuable real estate. It would be a nice
> feature to have if the camera's viewfinder (both optical and EVF)
> and the LCD could superimpose a thin frame showing where cropping
> might occur when printing with standard paper sizes such as 4"x6",
> 5"x7" and 8"x10". That way you could insure that no nasty cropping
> would occur at the time you take the picture, not later, at print
> time when it's more difficult to deal with.
>