New to printing questions - what can I expect?

[Seeking~Zen]

Hey everyone, I’m fairly new to photography and completely new to printing. I have a few questions and hope they aren’t the same ones asked time & time again. I recently shot a photo I really liked. First oops was that I didn’t use RAW and the second was that I overwrote the original after post processing and ended up with a much smaller size (approx 2.2mb) I’d like to print & frame this and am wondering how large I could realistically expect a quality print to be? I did crop it so the height is less than your typical 16:9 (?) aspect ratio. (Not panoramic, but closer to) so I assume I’ll have to trim and custom frame accordingly. (Not sure of the exact size – h x w)

This brings me to another question; I’ve noticed file size differences between 16:9 and 3:2 ratios, so I now shoot in 3:2 to get the largest available file size. Does either one of these have advantages over the other as far as common print sizes go?

Lastly, should I leave cropping out until it’s at the print source? I recently used Picasa to crop according to print size but after receiving my prints (from the local grocery store photo lab) they were cropped differently (lost more photo). Luckily it was just sort of a test so I wasn’t too miffed. I’m planning on going to a camera store to get my prints from now on, but it would be nice to know a bit about this stuff before hand.

Thanks in advance
S~Z

[teaking]

I believe most 16:9 are produced by your camera just cropping the picture for you from the 3:2 in your case, unless you have an expensive camera. I would guess that your 3:2 would have the most pixels and if you wanted 16:9 it would be best to shoot for the crop knowing what you will miss from cropping and crop your self that way you have the option to crop it to other print sizes loosing the least pixels.

It is also always best to crop last for the print size you need but save seperately.

As for the print size some people will say you need at least 300 dpi/ppi and you should enlarge it so it meets that requirement and theres nothing wrong with that arguement on some older inkjet printers anything lower can look crap... how ever I say leave it where it is and print, though its always good to check what the dpi/ppi will be at the print size you need first I personaly would say 150/200 DPI/PPI (sometimes even lower maybe 75dpi/ppi remember bigger prints are usualy viewed further away) on a good printing machine is more than enough for great results.

[Seeking~Zen]

great, thanks very much

[wulf]

Since something screwy has happened with the recent thread you have tried to post, I'll quote it here so people can suggest replies:

I dont know why the original thread went into an html page, so I'm trying to repost...

Hey everyone, I recently shot a photo that I really want to print in 8x10 or larger. I shoot in 3:2 and with this specific photo, I'll have to either crop out details I want to keep, or leave it and assume the photo will have large white borders on either side. (meaning a custom framing due to the fact the available crop/print options?) Since I want to use avaliable storebought frames, should I assume I should compensate for cropping? I've been trying to fill the entire frame with the complete scene I want to print so I can have the best image possible. Should I actually shoot with a print size in mind?

Wulf

[teaking]

If you do have in mind what size you want your photo printing then shoot for that crop leave space on the top and bottom for example a magazine spread. With the high Mega Pixel cameras today you can always crop to a standard 5x7 from the same shot. As a general rule try to leave enough space for different crops.

How ever on the photo you have, maybe you could use something like the GIMP's Liquid rescale plugin it will enable you to enlarge the image by different aspect ratio's while maintaining the ratio of selected areas for example people. It does it by adding pixels to other areas of the image, some pictures work better than others but its worth a shot. Photoshop has its own version of this.