Sizing/Printing Images

[mark05]

Hello all!
I'm looking for a little help with printing my digital images from Photoshop CS3 and if I take the files to a printer.
Alright. I take a picture, up-load to my computer, open with Photoshop and then use the print function to print it (I don't re-size or do anything with the image before this). Let's say I want an 8 x 10 print. Here's my problem. I can never get the print to be 8 x 10. there's always a protion of the print that gets cut off. Same if I try for 5 x 7 and so on. Also, Ive sent the file to a printer and asked for a 5 x 7 photo and the same thing happened.
I would eventually like to be able to create some custom photos (in Photoshop) and have them printed to various sizes. Can anyone offer suggestions? Maybe some reading/training publication?

Thank you!

[Dermit]

It's all about aspect ratio. Your camera likely captures in a 2:3 aspect ratio. Which basically means that if your short edge is 2 inches then the long edge is 3, or if short is 4 long is 6, etc. So it's not hard to figure out that an 8x10 is not divisible by 2x3 and therefore something has to change to fit. You can either crop off 2 inches in the long direction or keep the native length to 10 inches and add 1.33 inches to the width to make it 8 inches total.

Same idea about the 5x7, it's not the same aspect ratio, so you have to crop, or tweak.

[tim]

See the printing FAQ in my sig.

[Gipetto]

You can ask most printers to give you a "full frame" print of just about any size and they'll know to make sure you don't get cropped. You'll get unused paper on the print if they don't bother to trim for you, but most will know what you're asking for.

[mark05]

See the printing FAQ in my sig.

Tim,
Thank you for helping a novice out!

Mark