Resizing/printing without cropping?

I've been searching the forum and the internet for an answer to my dilemma and haven't been able to find one. I figured someone here might be able to help me and the information either hadn't been shared yet or I just haven't been able to find it.
What I want to do is resize my files for print without cropping them or skewing them. How do I do this? What are the optimal file sizes for 4x6, 5x7, and 8x10?
Is this possible at all, or do I need to frame the image when shooting with enough room around the edges to crop off?
I can't print from my pc because my lexmark prints _terrible_ pictures, so please don't suggest the "print with preview" function.
Thanks for your help.
Jeff

You can't not crop and still fill the frame of a print at the same time, unless the print is in the 3:2 aspect ratio (ie 12x8, 6x4, etc). You'll want to either allow white space on the sides of your print to keep the entire photo, or crop it to fit whatever size you're printing.

It's best to allow cropping room when you're shooting...since it's pretty much impossible to know for sure what size you want to print WHILE you're shooting.

If your camera has a 2/3 aspect ratio, then the only sizes you can print without cropping or adding an extra thick border to the picture are 2x3, 4x6, 8x12, 6x9, etc. And if you have a 3/4 aspect ratio camera, then you can only print 3x4, 6x8, 9x12, etc.

To fit your image into a standard size paper which does not have the same aspect ratio as your image, you have to crop the image or be willing to put up with borders along at least two edges. Most people tend to shoot with some extra space along the edges so that they can crop the image to any standard size and not lose anything important from the picture.

cdi-ink.com, thanks.
PacAce, you've been a font of information for me lately. Thanks again.
Jeff

Have PS? Make sure that the background color is black & Image> Canvas Size & enter a larger #. Then crop to the aspect ratio you need.

Get Qimage. This program allows you to crop and print any sized output without altering your original file. You set the size of print you want (or custom sizes or fit to page) and then select the image file. You can do some adjustments such as noise, sharpness, levels and curves without altering the original file. (A separate adjustment file is created.) When you are ready to print, you can go into another mode that allows you to adjust cropping to change the cropping selected by the program, or to enlarge and crop a portion of the image. When you press the print button, the program resamples the image to send exactly the right sized file to the printer. This resampled data is not saved, so the next time you want to print you have to wait for the computer to do all the calculations over. This time delay is the main draw back of Qimage. It is slow, but produces top quality prints.

Thanks for the tip, PhotosGuy.
ScottE, I'll check it out.