Adobe Photoshop Elements

Question:

I just printed several photos with Adobe PhotoShop Elements; one was 4x6 inches and other was 5x7 inches. The 4x6 that I printed actually measured 4x6 but the 5x7 measured 4.7 by 7. Whatâs going on and how do I get an exact 5x7 to fit my frame?

Answered by the North Orange County Computer Club:

First, The way prints are sized for printing has a lot to do with your digital camera. Every camera has a particular aspect ratio or ration of height to width. For example, one of my cameras has a resolution of 2136 pixels wide by 1424 pixels high which is a ratio of 3 to 2. Some cameras have ratios of 4 to 3 or 16 to 9. Not only that , some cameras allow you to change the aspect ration on a shot by shot basis. Check your camera manual.

Now, what does all this mean? It turns out that when a program such as PhotoShop Elements prints a photo such as a 5 by 7, it does not modify that ratio of the original unless you specifically tell it to. If you take the 7 inch dimension and multiply it by 2/3, the result is 4.666 or 4.7 inches. If you chose to print a 4 by 6, this already has a ration of 2 to 3 and would print exactly that.

No digital camera takes photos with a 5 by 7 ration so the resulting pictures are not exactly 5 x 7, as you discovered. When you print with Photoshop Elements you will have a choice labeled âCrop to Fit.â

What this does is stretch the 4.7 inch dimension to 5 inches and to maintain the 3 to 2 ration, the 7 inches becomes 7.5. If we do the math, 7.5 by 5 is a 3 to 2 ration. This means that .5 inches in the 7-inch dimension is cropped away. You have little control of what gets chopped off, and if something along the edge is important to you, be aware that it may not print.

All is not lost. There is a solution whereby you can control what gets cropped by making an exact 5x7 in the Photoshop Elements Editor. There are several ways to crop an image. Hereâs one method:

• Open your photo in the Editor.
• Select the crop tool by clicking it or press the C key on your keyboard
• In the Options Bar at the top, select â5 x 7 inchesâ under aspect ratio.
• Draw a crop rectangle by dragging across the photo with your mouse. Draw the largest size that you need to keep the entire desired portion of the photo.
• Click in the center of the rectangle you just drew and drag it around to where itâs best or your needs
• Complete the cropping action by either double clicking inside the photo, clicking the Green check mark or by pressing the Enter key on your keyboard.

Now would be a good time to save the cropped photo with a new file name to preserve the original. This, of course, is optional but allows you to create other sizes from the original in the future.

When you select File, Print and select the 5 by 7 option now, youâll notice that nothing changes when you select the crop to fit option. Thatâs because the photo is cropped to exactly 5 by 7 before printing. This procedure works for any file size unless the aspect ratio of the print matches that of your digital camera such as the 4 by 6, in which case itâs not necessary. Obviously, any size can be cropped to remove unwanted areas.