[RESOLVED] What size to make a photo for an 8X10 print?
I recently took a lot of photos of my granddaughter's baby shower and now I want to burn them on to a CD so that her mother can print out the ones that she wants. My daughter in-law usually always prints out all her photos to be an 8X10 picture. All the photos I transferred to my computer are anywhere between 4.50-5.00 MB JPEG. I want to reduce their size so that she gets a good quality photo but I don't want to reduce them too small so that they look distorted when she tries to print them out as an 8X10. I use PhotoScape for all my reducing needs because it is so easy to use. But I usually just reduce in order to upload photos to the web--which would be smaller than what you would want to print out.
In the resizing function of the program, it says:
Reduce longer length to 100 px, all the way up to the option of reducing the longer length to 1600 px.
Below these options are also options for making photos bigger, such as stating:
or adjust the longer width
adjust the wider width
adjust the height width
And when you click on one of these options, it gives you the opportunity to erase what is in the number of px shown in a block. (It automatically adjusts the size of the length if you change the width and visa versa) Usually if I am wanting to enlarge, I just add a little bit bigger number into that block because I don't want to distort the photo.
Just to give you an example of one of the photos I just reduced, the photo was 5.1 MB JPEG. I saved it in the re-size function where it said:
Reduce the longer length to 800 px.
When I saved it to that size, then the new size showed 324.9 KB--which sounds as if it would be too small for printing out a 8X10.
Can someone give me some advice on what I should do in order to re-size these photos for printing out 8X10s ? :confused:
Thanks in advance,
Train, just one question?
Train:
I always make copies of the ones I am going to change so that I always have the original--probably why I have so many photos on my hard drive! But my second drive is one T big, so I don't worry about it. One of the reasons I love using PhotoScape, is because when you make changes to a photo and if you don't "Save As" it automatically puts the original photo in a folder named, "original."
One question, what do you mean by:
"I just use the windows print" ?
Do you mean go to "File" and click "Print"? That is what I always do.
Thanks,
Print Button Just Does Not Work
Train:
I printed out your instructions and followed them exactly as you posted them--but when you click the "Print" button, just as before, nothing happens--printer does not even open. Only if I select just one photo will it open.
I think that Photo Lady in the Vista Forum was right when she said:
Quote:
Using Vista Premium Home Edition- 32 Bit (what I have)
That could be the difference, Train is using Vista Ultimate.
This is what I did find out. If instead of clicking on "Print", I go to "File-Print", (after I have selected all my photos), then the options come up almost just like the ones that you posted. The difference being that when you want to select the right contact sheet, you have to select the option of either "Letter" or "Legal" under paper size for all the options of the contact sheets to show. Under "Paper Type" I see "HP Premium Photo" showing (have a HP printer) and there are options in a drop down menu under "HP Premium Photo" for other types of paper. There are no options at all for "Quality"--it will only show, "600X600 dots per inch" here.
One question I have. You know how you said,
Quote:
It does tend to clip the edges of graphics at times
, is there anyway to fix this problem? I ask because I selected 9 photos to print out as wallet size, and it showed one photo as having the baby's head cut off. If I reduce the size of that particular photo, would that solve the problem? I have all the photos in a big file format thinking the pictures will look better.
And what is the difference between Legal & Letter size?
One last question. I noticed that when I have tried to print using these options in the past, it does not give me the option of changing my printer settings. A long time ago my daughter changed these settings for me to "print in gray scale" because I printed out mostly text and this saved me on ink. So now if I try to print out photos in a graphic program, the option does not come up for me to change the settings, everything prints out in gray scale. So what I had to do the other day when I wanted to print out a 8X10 colored photo (it printed in gray scale using Photo Gallery), I had to insert the photo into a "Word" document and print it out that way. At least when you use MS Word it lets you choose the printer settings. The photo turned out OK, but I think it would have turned out a lot better if I had used a graphic program to print it out instead of Word. Do you know how I can change this printer back to Normal permanently? I know this is a different topic, but it goes along with being able to print out photos since I can't really print them out in color if I can't change the settings. This was originally my daughter's printer so that is why I am so unfamiliar with it.
I have ink now & want to print out photos without wasting ink and photo paper because of mistakes I am making because I made wrong selections of how to print. My granddaughter's husband is in the marines and has never seen his new born baby & I would love to send him some photos. The only ones he has ever seen are ones people sent to him over his cell. I am sure he would rather have a print copy.
Glad you are back.:)
Thanks,