Costco photo web printing - how to avoid cropping?

I uploaded photos to Costco Photo Center and I can't find how to skip cropping - it always crops. I can choose what to crop but I can't see an option to avoid cropping altogether.

I need to print 12x18 but some of my photos are in 3x4 or 4x5 format and I can't crop them, I'd rather have white bars that I'll cut later, but there isn't such option. Please tell if I miss something.

micksh6 said:

micksh6 wrote:

I uploaded photos to Costco Photo Center and I can't find how to skip cropping - it always crops. I can choose what to crop but I can't see an option to avoid cropping altogether.
I need to print 12x18 but some of my photos are in 3x4 or 4x5 format and I can't crop them, I'd rather have white bars that I'll cut later, but there isn't such option. Please tell if I miss something.

Click to expand...

Just add white in whatever software you are using for editing your images.

Brian A

Hugowolf said:

Hugowolf wrote:

Hugowolf said:

micksh6 wrote:

I uploaded photos to Costco Photo Center and I can't find how to skip cropping - it always crops. I can choose what to crop but I can't see an option to avoid cropping altogether.
I need to print 12x18 but some of my photos are in 3x4 or 4x5 format and I can't crop them, I'd rather have white bars that I'll cut later, but there isn't such option. Please tell if I miss something.

Click to expand...

Just add white in whatever software you are using for editing your images.

Brian A

Click to expand...

Thanks. That was my first thought. Of course I can do that, but is this the only way?
I've been using Costco before but I always cropped to final print aspect ratio before uploading. These ones I can't crop and there isn't a better option to print with 12" height.
Funny thing, previously I ordered 8x10" prints and they printed it on 8x12 paper with white bars. But I can't choose white bars now.

micksh6 said:

micksh6 wrote:

micksh6 said:

Hugowolf wrote:

micksh6 said:

micksh6 wrote:

I uploaded photos to Costco Photo Center and I can't find how to skip cropping - it always crops. I can choose what to crop but I can't see an option to avoid cropping altogether.
I need to print 12x18 but some of my photos are in 3x4 or 4x5 format and I can't crop them, I'd rather have white bars that I'll cut later, but there isn't such option. Please tell if I miss something.

Click to expand...

Just add white in whatever software you are using for editing your images.

Brian A

Click to expand...

Thanks. That was my first thought. Of course I can do that, but is this the only way?
I've been using Costco before but I always cropped to final print aspect ratio before uploading. These ones I can't crop and there isn't a better option to print with 12" height

Click to expand...

I can't think of a more reliable option.

Brian A

micksh6 said:

micksh6 wrote:

I uploaded photos to Costco Photo Center and I can't find how to skip cropping - it always crops. I can choose what to crop but I can't see an option to avoid cropping altogether.
I need to print 12x18 but some of my photos are in 3x4 or 4x5 format and I can't crop them, I'd rather have white bars that I'll cut later, but there isn't such option. Please tell if I miss something.

Click to expand...

You don't mention what processing software you are using; but, assuming the nomenclature of Adobe (Elements or Photoshop), set the size of your image such that the "canvas size" is 12 x 18, and the "image size" is the size that you want your image to be. The image on the print will be the size that you indicate as "image size", when printed on a 12 x 18 sheet, with the rest of the sheet being a white border.

--
Cliff
http://www.pbase.com/cliffb

CliffB said:

CliffB wrote:

CliffB said:

micksh6 wrote:

I uploaded photos to Costco Photo Center and I can't find how to skip cropping - it always crops. I can choose what to crop but I can't see an option to avoid cropping altogether.
I need to print 12x18 but some of my photos are in 3x4 or 4x5 format and I can't crop them, I'd rather have white bars that I'll cut later, but there isn't such option. Please tell if I miss something.

Click to expand...

You don't mention what processing software you are using; but, assuming the nomenclature of Adobe (Elements or Photoshop), set the size of your image such that the "canvas size" is 12 x 18, and the "image size" is the size that you want your image to be. The image on the print will be the size that you indicate as "image size", when printed on a 12 x 18 sheet, with the rest of the sheet being a white border.

Click to expand...

I use Adobe Lightroom now. I don't think one can add borders in Lightroom easily.
I don't have Photoshop or Elements and from what you describe it looks like adding borders should be a piece of cake in these.

What I did - I also have Corel Photo Shop Pro X4 which I often use as a part of my workflow. It got a command to add borders but I had to specify border width in pixels. I used calculator to find out how much I need to add for 3:2 aspect ratio. Pain in the a$$, I know, but this got the job done as I really wanted to have prints today.



BTW, the prints came out great, and I think Costco prints at 12x18" are excellent value for $3 each. The quality is very good for me, exactly what I expected.

But I think it's a ridiculous omission - not letting people to avoid cropping. What are they thinking? Even if I had software to add canvas for given aspect ratio in one click this isn't something that I would want to do. Sure, Costco Photo Center isn't probably a service targeted to pro photographers, but their quality is good, isn't it? And they even provide printer color profiles. It's just one small thing that they miss.

Last time I printed there for some reason they were unable to do 16x20 without cutting off some of it....so I told them to use larger paper = done. You may have to approach this similarly.

Leswick

Don't print portraits through Costco.com

Unfortunately, something has gone wrong with the Costco vendor. I just went through all the gyrations.

When you upload portrait their software USUALLY displays a square image icon and crops severely. Way more cropping than the landscape with the same dimensions. The prints get delivered in separate stacks of portrait and landscape. Something has gone way wrong here. This has never happened before to me. They even know something is wrong because they refund my entire 500 photos completely.

I tried again after talking to tech support with new online settings but the result is the same. Standard customer support has no idea what you are talking about.

Occasionally the photo will retain the portrait aspect ratio and crop correctly.

Honestly, why should my landscape photo lose a tiny sliver at top and bottom and then my same sized portrait photo lose nearly half the sides? ugh.

This happens with photos from a variety of cameras.