Printing Photopass CD Pictures About This Page:

[pamcarey]

I have a question about printing pictures from a Photopass CD. I use Snapfish to print my pictures, and all of the pictures which I added borders to are getting cropped off when I print them. (I tried printing both ways that Snapfish offers, 4x6 or 4x5.3, and neither worked right. One cropped in one direction, and one cropped in the other.) I called Snapfish customer service, and they told me that I would have to order 8x10's in order to not get my borders cut off!! Obviously I don't want to do that. The pictures that are causing the problems are the ones with borders that go all or most of the way around.

Has anyone had a similar problem, and what did you do about it? Has anyone used another print service (other than Snapfish), where they didn't have this problem?

Thanks for your help!!

[bradk]

i need to revisit it later this weekend, but evidently there's a choice when you crop photos online to be a certain size.

otherwise my stock response is this, they are 4x6 unenhanced, but go to 5x7 when enhanced. but maybe that's a default thing.

[mcneasn]

That's a problem you'll have with any developer. Digital cameras take images with a 4:3 ratio. This ratio causing a natural crop when selecting standard image sizes (3x5, 4x6, etc.) unless you distort the image.

When I printed my Photopass images, I uploaded them to Sam's Club. Using their program, I was able to crop and resize the images to my liking prior to uploading. If your preferred photo printer doesn't have that capability, you may have to edit the image(s) yourself. Programs such as Photoshop Elements can make it quick and easy.

Good Luck.

[bradk]

the ratio depends on the camera. there is no standard. my camera which is a Canon EOS 40D (and a 20D prior to that) and the Nikon D70/80 which the PhotoPass folks use are perfect 4x6s.

this photo is completely unedited, straight from the camera. 4x6


that's not the problem here.

what is a problem is that no standard photo size (4x6, 5x7, 8x10, etc) is in the same ratio so cropping will always occur going between them.

[DawnDenise]

I regularly use Snapfish and just got my order last week from my most recent trip in February. My Photopass pics turned out okay with the borders I put on. I ordered the "standard" 4x6 through them. Not sure why they were talking about stating you needed to order an 8x10 to get the borders. Might want to try calling customer service again. Hope you can get it worked out.

[mcneasn]

I stand corrected. I should have said many cameras have a 4:3 ratio. The Nikon D70 is a 3:2, which does prevent a lot of cropping when resizing.

[bradk]

and 3:2 (or rather 2:3) = 4x6 (simplified)

so again, no cropping when printed at 4x6, but cropping at 5x7 or 8x10. this is just the nature of the beast.

however, also again, when enhancing photopass photos, ratios do change, so they may no longer be in 4x6 ratio.

[pamcarey]

Thanks everyone for the quick responses. My personal camera has a 4:3 ratio, so I normally use Snapfish's option for that. I wasn't sure about what Photopass used, so I tried printing some both ways and either way I got part of the border cut off. Either a little off the long side or a little off the short side... which didn't matter on some pictures, but wasn't very nice on pictures with a MNSSHP border or a Test Track border. Not sure what my best option is. Maybe I will try cropping them to my liking in Snapfish and see if that works. Or maybe I can print them at somewhere like CVS and crop them on the machine there. Brad, you are definitely right that adding enhancements changes the ratio. That makes sense now that I think about it.

[pamcarey]

Originally Posted by DawnDenise

I regularly use Snapfish and just got my order last week from my most recent trip in February. My Photopass pics turned out okay with the borders I put on. I ordered the "standard" 4x6 through them. Not sure why they were talking about stating you needed to order an 8x10 to get the borders. Might want to try calling customer service again. Hope you can get it worked out.

Thanks! The woman in customer service said that she opened my pictures as 4x6, 5x7, and 8x10, and the only way to get the whole border was an 8x10. Which obviously won't work for my scrapbook or photo album. Some borders were okay, but anything that went all the way around was cut off on one side or the other. (BTW, I just finished reading your December TR and can't wait to start the one from your February trip .)

[bradk]

i have to go to WOD tomorrow and get some photopass pics and report back, unless someone else can confirm but i want to see it for myself anyway. supposedly when you enhance/crop online, there's a choice of sizes of ratios. i never noticed it myself which is why i was surprised at the change from 4x6 to 5x7 on enhanced photos, so if it's there, i'm sure it's not that obvious

[Tonichelle]

most digital borders, no matter who you're using, will crop off at anything smaller than 5x7.. sears portraits got a lot of complaints for it, but that's how it goes...

[Disneyfan62]

I used Winkflash to upload and print my photopass pics and din;t have any problem at all with the borders. And they were only 6 cents a print.

[wdwlovers]

My girlfriend just took her photos in to Target and had them printed the other week and I don't recall her having any issues with printing the couple she had with borders.

[mattnkatsmum]

We print ours off at Costco and having played around with all the size options worked out that only 10 x 8 didn't give us any cropping issues. It therefore cost us a fortune to print a couple of hundred photos off, but the results are spectacular.

I suspect that most digital photo printers will give you a 'print preview' option, which I definitely recommend checking out before you order.