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How to prepare pictures for printing at Walmart

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Rick James

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How do I prep my image in photoshop 6 for printing by Walmart?

My Canon S30 image is 1536(height) by 2048(width) pixels.

So, if I want Walmart to print this as a 4 x 6, I can click on "Image" next to File and edit, then choose "Image Size". Then change the Document Size Height and Width to 4 and 6. The picture now changes to 4 x 6 inches..BUT...

I've just lost a lot of detail in the image. Lost many pixels. How can I resize and crop it to 4 x 6 and not lose the detail? I still want to maintain a 700k file size. Not lost half of that and make it 350k.

What else should I do to ready the huge image for printing. I'm currently just doing the basic stuff I do for displaying my digital pictures online...saturation increase/decrease, play with curves, fix sharpness if needed, auto levels, fix contrast/brightness.

--.: Rick James
 
Rick James said:
How do I prep my image in photoshop 6 for printing by Walmart?

My Canon S30 image is 1536(height) by 2048(width) pixels.

So, if I want Walmart to print this as a 4 x 6, I can click on
"Image" next to File and edit, then choose "Image Size". Then
change the Document Size Height and Width to 4 and 6. The picture
now changes to 4 x 6 inches..BUT...

I've just lost a lot of detail in the image. Lost many pixels. How
can I resize and crop it to 4 x 6 and not lose the detail? I still
want to maintain a 700k file size. Not lost half of that and make
it 350k.
Click to expand...
P S 6. cropper tool has 3 factors - height , width, resolution. enter 6", 4" and 225 dpi. run the cropper over your image to get the composition you desire and ok it( press enter)... your new image is ready to save as a tiff to harddrive. Transfer to CD, and take it to wal mart or whomever has a fuji frontier printer.

if you use the image size box.... enter 4, 6, and 225 into the appropriate spaces. be sure that the resample box is checked... ok it and save to a tiff file...

If you are trying to resave jpegs as jpegs... that will lead to some noticeable quality loss... save anything going to the lab with a tiff. there is plenty of room on the CD .

A program like Qimage can que up your entire batch of images and export them to proper sized tiff files for transfer to cd..Quick size 4x6. select all desired images and drag onto print queue. go to File/Export pages and make tiffs in a folder.. save the folder to Cd and take to Wal Mart.

Stuart
 
You said:
Stuart20831 said:
P S 6. cropper tool has 3 factors - height , width,
resolution. enter 6", 4" and 225 dpi. run the cropper over your
image to get the composition you desire and ok it( press enter)...
your new image is ready to save as a tiff to harddrive.
Click to expand...
After I select the cropper tool and set the height, width and resolution...how do I actually do the crop? If I move the cropper tool over the image, I see no preset box that is 4 x 6 so I can just move it to what I want in the printed image...

What did you mean by "run the cropper over your image" ??

Did you mean run the Marquee tool?

Err.

Thanks for the help though..it got me started...--.: Rick James
 
Download them AS IS. Walmart's photocenter online has an excellent cropping tool.
Rick James said:
How do I prep my image in photoshop 6 for printing by Walmart?

My Canon S30 image is 1536(height) by 2048(width) pixels.

So, if I want Walmart to print this as a 4 x 6, I can click on
"Image" next to File and edit, then choose "Image Size". Then
change the Document Size Height and Width to 4 and 6. The picture
now changes to 4 x 6 inches..BUT...

I've just lost a lot of detail in the image. Lost many pixels. How
can I resize and crop it to 4 x 6 and not lose the detail? I still
want to maintain a 700k file size. Not lost half of that and make
it 350k.

What else should I do to ready the huge image for printing. I'm
currently just doing the basic stuff I do for displaying my digital
pictures online...saturation increase/decrease, play with curves,
fix sharpness if needed, auto levels, fix contrast/brightness.

--
.: Rick James
Click to expand...
 
Do this to crop a 1536 x 2048 image to 4 x 6 ratio:
1- Open a file of this size
2- Click the crop tool
3- Change the height number 21.037 to 18.962 (leave the other # alone)

4- Using the crop tool now, you will see it is constrained to only a certain height. When you are happy with the crop, hit enter and the photo is now in the exact dimensions to make a 4 x 6 print that looks exactly like your cropped image.

This will reduce the # of pixels slightly, but for a 3 MP file, making a 4 x 6 print, you should not notice a reduction of quality. I do this all the time with 4 MP images (using different cropping calculations of course) and it works great. PS even remembers the ratio for the next time you crop a file even if you close PS and reopen it days later.

Also note that you can create an action in PS to automatically crop and save an entire folder of images at one time. Just be sure you are working with copies of your original files or your originals will be permanantly cropped.
Rick James said:
How do I prep my image in photoshop 6 for printing by Walmart?

My Canon S30 image is 1536(height) by 2048(width) pixels.

So, if I want Walmart to print this as a 4 x 6, I can click on
"Image" next to File and edit, then choose "Image Size". Then
change the Document Size Height and Width to 4 and 6. The picture
now changes to 4 x 6 inches..BUT...

I've just lost a lot of detail in the image. Lost many pixels. How
can I resize and crop it to 4 x 6 and not lose the detail? I still
want to maintain a 700k file size. Not lost half of that and make
it 350k.

What else should I do to ready the huge image for printing. I'm
currently just doing the basic stuff I do for displaying my digital
pictures online...saturation increase/decrease, play with curves,
fix sharpness if needed, auto levels, fix contrast/brightness.

--
.: Rick James
Click to expand...
-- http://www.pbase.com/dnewell228/
 
Unless Ofoto has upgraded their equipment, I can promise you that you will be much more impressed with Walmart.com image quality, they use Fuji Frontier printers that produce incredible prints! I think Ofoto is uses Kodak machines. I am not aware if Kodak has a machine that can compare with the Frontier quality. Plus you may find a local photo processor with the Frontier machine, many Walmarts and Costcos have them. Seeing is believing-- try it!
Chrissy said:
I use ofoto.com, and I don't do anything to prepare. They do it,
and very well I might add.
--
g2 owner
Click to expand...
-- http://www.pbase.com/dnewell228/
 
Check the back of the paper from your most recent Ofoto order- if it does not say "FujiColor Crystal Archive" then I recommend you have some shots printed on the Frontier machine. Print something that you have also had printed at Ofoto and then you can compare them. It has been about 1 year since I used Ofoto.
Chrissy said:
Chrissy said:
Frontier machine, many
Walmarts and Costcos have them. Seeing is believing-- try it!
Click to expand...
I can't imagine how these 8x10s could look any better, but I'll
give it a shot. thanks.
--
g2 owner
Click to expand...
-- http://www.pbase.com/dnewell228/
 
David N. said:
Do this to crop a 1536 x 2048 image to 4 x 6 ratio:
1- Open a file of this size
2- Click the crop tool
3- Change the height number 21.037 to 18.962 (leave the other # alone)
4- Using the crop tool now, you will see it is constrained to only
a certain height. When you are happy with the crop, hit enter and
the photo is now in the exact dimensions to make a 4 x 6 print that
looks exactly like your cropped image.
This will reduce the # of pixels slightly, but for a 3 MP file,
making a 4 x 6 print, you should not notice a reduction of quality.
I do this all the time with 4 MP images (using different cropping
calculations of course)
Click to expand...
1. i don't quite understand how one arrives at that height number. any ideas like for my G2. thanks jan

--G2
 
After a few very helpful posts, I finally figured out my error.

David N. used the word "Constrained":
David N. said:
Using the crop tool now, you will see it is constrained to only a certain height. When you are happy with the crop, hit enter and the photo is now in the exact dimensions to make a 4 x 6 print that looks exactly like your cropped image.
Click to expand...
So, the cropping tool did work, it constrained it to 4x6 proportions mathematically. So 2/3(2x3) was legal.

I was expected the cropping tool to change to a 4x6 rectangle that would only allow me to drag that rectangle around the original image.

Stuart's post was extremely helpful as well, expect I don't know why he choose 225ppi when 300 is more popular.

The pictures that will now be printed by Walmart reside at:

pbase.com/blueplastic

--.: Rick James
 
Why should I save the image at 225 ppi?

Somewhere I heard that Walmart prints at 300dpi.

so, am I better off saving the image at 300 dpi?

--.: Rick James
 
The short answer to your question is: 21.036. Here's how you make the calculation:

If you have ever viewed the original 4mp image size (from the image drop down menu) you will see that the original dimensions on a 4mp file are 31.556 wide X 23.667 high. What you are trying to accomplish is the crop only one of your dimensions to make the cropped image the same ratio as 4 x 6.
Here's how you get the number, its simple algebra:

6 x 4 = 31.556 x ??: You divide 31.556 by 6 which equals 5.259. Then multiply 4 x 5.259 = 21.036. So after you select the crop tool you should see the crop options toolbar just below your drop down menus. There are width and height fields you can enter values into. Input the original width (31.556) and the recalcuated height (21.036) and crop away. This method will work with any dimensions, so if you want to crop something to 5 x 7, just divide 31.556 by 7, and so on.
jan said:
1. i don't quite understand how one arrives at that height number.
any ideas like for my G2. thanks jan
Click to expand...
-- http://www.pbase.com/dnewell228/
 
The answer ultimately is "whatever looks good to you"; but I have created an action which is easy to do (read your manual if you don't know how) which performs the following: 1) crop -- see my posts above on how I do this; 2) auto levels; 3) unsharp mask

You have to go through some trial and error to get everything right and even then sometimes when you look at the post-action images you will find one you are unhappy with and have to do over manually. Just be sure you are modifiying copies of your original images, because once you crop down a file you cannot recover the cut data. I copy everything I plan to have printed into a new folder and then batch process everything using the action. Yes-- you can tell photoshop to run an action on a whole folder full of files and it does everything while you sit back and relax!
kenlin said:
Rick James said:
How do I prep my image in photoshop 6 for printing by Walmart?

.: Rick James
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
-- http://www.pbase.com/dnewell228/
 
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