Package prints

[dougsmit]

Hopefully, we all know that we need to allow for the proportions of our final prints when cropping. If we shoot a 2:3 format and want to print 4x6, 5x7 and 8x10 we will have three different shaped prints and three different crops.

My printer of choice (Costco but the same rules will apply to others) started offering 'Package' prints consisting of one 8x12", 2-5x7" and 5-wallets (2 1/2x3 1/2"). I knew that the 5x7 and wallets were the same proportions (1:1.4) while the 8x12 matches the camera format (1:1.5). When I got my prints I was surprised that the big print was cropped to fit on all four sides rather than giving the full file. The crop matched the 5x7 on the short sides but more was lost on the long side. This resulted in the loss of a hair ribbon on one sister in a family group. Knowing this, I could have prepared the file more loosely cropped but the first result was not acceptable. I asked the photo manager what was going on and it seems this was the first complaint they had on the matter. They make a big point on the need to allow for proportions but the input software did not show this as a potential problem. Reprinting the file as a solo 8x12 gave exactly what I wanted so the problem was in the set up for the package. My answer will be not to buy the packages anymore. There is no price break (actually the wallets cost more this way) and individual prints come fully cut apart saving a step for the end user.

This is posted to suggest that those of you having package prints made (whatever the lab) check to see how they handle the question of more than one proportion included in their package. It is no big thing to work around whatever the situation might be but you don't want a surprise if it first turns up on a rush job.

[Athena]

I'm confused. Are you saying the proportions of your original were correct and they cropped it anyway?

I always resize my photos for print. If there is going to be any cropping done, I want to be the one doing it. When I give them the files, they get them in folders named 5X7, 8X10, etc. Control freak... um, maybe... just a little, tiny, titsy bit.

[dougsmit]

Yes you should always do the cropping but when prints are made in a package including more than one format from a single file, there must be something cropped on one or the other. I assumed that they would print the one that could be as a full file and cut some off the ones that must be cut. Instead they cut the 5x7 as expected and cropped the 8x12 even more so the 12" direction match the crop of the 5" and the 8" direction was cropped even more. The point of my post is that you can not assume anything. They were very willing to redo the 8x12 as it should have been but I wonder if they will change their package set up or assume most people won't care. I also wonder if this is a standard problem at other Costco locations or just a set up error at mine.

[Athena]

I see - they cropped to 5x7 and then from there back to the 2/3 ration for your 8x12. Definitely a bad workflow. Hopefully you got them straightened out.

[kgphoto]

I tried to use the counter top picture selector/ordered machine and finally gave up. It wanted to crop all my images. I made them all packages on 1 sheet of 8x10 paper in photoshop. Then I took them in and tried to order them on 1 sheet of 8x10. Well they only offer 8x12.

OK no big deal, but when they came up on the screen they were cropping the sides of every image in the package. I said, if this fits on 8x10 and this is bigger paper, why are they cropping? There only answer what to show me that it worked on 11x14 paper!

I finally went home and used the online ordering system and it worked fine. There are not packages, per-se, but you can get what you want at a very reasonable price with pretty good quality. I did find that they are consistent in color and brightness between the wallets and 5x7's except on one. Their excuse was they already adjusted the 5x7 one stop. I said, maybe you did, but obviously it was still wrong, so it should have be adjusted further. They were able to remake it very quickly and correctly, so just don't plan on doing any rush jobs through them and check your entire order.

[dougsmit]

Originally Posted by kgphoto

I said, if this fits on 8x10 and this is bigger paper, why are they cropping?

It is a matter of proportion. The camera shoots the same 2:3 proportions that you get when ordering 4x6, 8x12 or 12x18. Other sizes require cropping. When a package includes a size not listed above (like 5x7) something gets cropped and it is not always the way you wanted it. The big deal to me was that the prices of a package print added up to more than the sum printed separately so the easy answer is just to order what you want as separate prints. I make wallets by placing 2 or 4 together on a single file and printing as a 4x6. Costco charges considerably less for a 4x6 than for similar square inches in other sizes so any time you can use that size, it is the 'deal'. Four 4x6 prints are 60 cents but one 8x12 or a package on 8x12 paper is $1.49 with both using the same amount of paper. Printing separately also avoids having to cut them apart manually so I see no reason to order the packages. If you tell them to print without corrections, the prints should match but if they correct it is possible that one attempt will be different than the next. While Costco employees tend to be sharper than some of their competition, there is a difference in their abilities so you do need to check and ask them to remake things they mess up.

[kgphoto]

Doug,

I am not sure I follow you. My entire image was a set of different sized images as a package that would fit comfortably on an 8x10 sheet. By using a longer sheet, there would just be extra added to one end.

I think what you are saying here is, they treated the whole image as one 8x10 and to make that fit, they cropped the sides so they could enlarge the length to make the 8x12. Boy is that dumb. There ought to be a way to adjust where the image prints on the paper or to ask for no cropping.

I get 4 wallets on a 5x7 sheet for .37 cents at my Costco. I order online and check the whole order at the counter, now.

[dougsmit]

You were doing the work at home by making up a combination file rather than using Costco's in house utility where you upload a single file and it repeats it to fill a larger print (they offer several). Your way works fine but only if you select a size they offer. That would be 8x12 not 8x10. A fault of Costco is that they assume you want to fill the paper you are paying for so do not offer , for example, an 8x10 piece of paper with white borders on the long sides to give a full frame image. If you order 8x10, you get, in effect, an 8x12 which has been cut down to 8x10. Workers at Costco and any other lab are regularly exasperated with customers who can not understand that you must use a print size and file size that match in proportions or something will be cropped. They get complaints if they cut into someone's head and they get complaints if they don't fill the paper with image. If lab managers had any say in this world, there would be no more 8x10 frames made so camera files would fit the 'standards' that match the 2:3 proportions of 35mm cameras.

[kgphoto]

Thanks Doug. While I am tempted to make an 8x12 file and run it over there to test it, I really would rather stick to the ability to make Standard 8x10's, so I will just stick to producing them on line and ordering that way.

Thank you for clearing up how their stupid, limited system works. Once I learn the limitations, it will be fine.

[Songman45]

Man, what a world of confusion the 35mm camera created. Somewhere long ago on a planet far, far away 8X10 became a standard print size. Propotionally equal was the 4X5 "proof" size. Lucky for us that 4 - 4X5's will fit on an 8X10 sheet of paper. The only hang ups with cropping was for the 2.25" square shooters. Suddenly the popularity of 35mm changed things. The first round of photo lab standard prints were 3.5X5 instead of the 4X5. To give retail customers more bang for the buck labs began to offer "super size" prints (first at an additional charge) these are the now standard 4X6 "full frame" which will not proportionally enlarge to 8X10 but will make an 8X12. Now the one hour labs could offer not only a larger standard print but a wall size enlargement of a snapshot with that same bigger bang for the buck larger size. Never mind that 8X10 is the industry standard and 8X12 photo frames are scarce, ready made. Some of the department store portrait studios, like PCA, changed their long roll cameras to 35mm long non-perferated film and began mass marketing this 8X12 and other odd-ball sizes.

So much for getting 4-4X5's on one sheet of paper anymore. There are so many 4X6's out there that the frame makers dropped the 4X5 as standard. People have a perception that bigger paper means more picture for the money. Now that I feel compelled to print 4X6's which are not proportional to the 8X10s which are still accepted as a standard size. In dong those, the cost of paper goes up by 50% and I waste nearly half a sheet that just hits the round file.

In the digital age where camera resolution exceeds human visual acuity and enlargments can be successfully produced from tiny areas of the "negative", why are we still locked into these odd ball enlargement diminisons? Is it because our sensor closely resembles the film area of a 35mm?

Why don't we crop loose, and give oursleves room to accommodate what ever diminsion the customer is likely to ask for. 11X14's 8X10's 5X7's and 2.5X3's are not proportional to each other and therefore cannot be masked to put the same image simply spread over a larger paper or shrunk to fit on a smaller one. There has to be breathing room for cropping and centering. That's the way it was and the way it should be.

That's my time, thank you for yours.

[kgphoto]

Cropping loosely, means no perfect composition. I like to create art to look a certain way and then offer the one print that fits my vision, be that an 8x10 or a 10x10. 8x10 = 16x20, 20x24(close), 24x30 etc.

I want the lines to land "just so."

[hotrod4x5]

I used to crop all my images in PS before uploading, but now I use labs that offer ROES ordering and I do all my cropping in it. You can even straighten and add a number of other effects.

[dougsmit]

While I would love to see prints standardized on one proportion, right now my greater concern is the fact that a decreasing number of people who take digital are even bothering to make prints. As quickly as it became easy to get one hour prints at every kind of store it can become hard to find anyone to do the work as businesses discover that more and more images are being kept in softcopy only. People have photos on digital frames, home computers and cell phones more every day and fewer people get 2 - 4x6 prints of every shot. That business is what made it possible to get 4x6 prints for 15 cents. I wonder if we will see a time when any prints will be the venue of custom labs. Wedding albums are going the way of press printed custom books; grandma's get the kids via email. I wonder how soon we all will all be watching our still photo work on 50 inch TV's during the commercials and packing away all the photo albums to mold in the basement?