Letterbox Print Feature

[Ken Katz]

On occasion, I am asked to generate a large number of 4x6" prints for family, and many times such images, after appropriate cropping, don't really fit the 1x1.5 print ratio. This has been further exasperated since almost all the images are now produced by either my m43 cameras or smartphones, both of which do not use the 1x1.5 native format. In the past, I have relied on Adorama Pix for such images since they have a feature which allows photos to be printed in Letterbox format (which leaves blank space on either side of the paper, while printing the full uncropped image). As far as I know, no other photo printing service provides this feature, and their automated system will crop the image to produce a full bleed print on the paper selected.

 

The issue I have is that in March, Adorama's Letterbox feature failed, even though it appeared to be activated. Perhaps it was an intermittent glitch or something else. So (finally!) my questions are:

 

- Are there any other online photo printing services that provides a "letterbox" feature? I have checked a number of Adorama competitors, including MPIX, and did not find the feature.

- Is there an easy way to do it myself in Lightroom, and generate jpegs for printing with the appropriate borders imbedded in the jpegs? I have done this a few times with a handful of 12x18" prints using the "Print" module, and it was a royal PITA. I would need an automated process that would generate printable jpegs from selected files.

- Is there a third party program that would attach to Lightroom that could do this?

 

Any help would be appreciated.

[digitaldog]

You might do this in Lightroom Classic with a free plug-in:

LR/Mogrify 2 - Add Watermarks, Border and Text Annotions to Images Exported by Adobe Lightroom

[Ed_Ingold]

You have a choice for raw 4x6 prints - uneven borders (lossless), or borderless (losing about 1/8" of image on all sides). If you take the time to crop, you can even up the borders, but borderless options always crop for you.

[paddler4]

I don't think there is a need a plugin or add-on if you print from Lightroom.

 

In LR, you can crop to any aspect ratio you want in the develop module, including custom ratios of your own creation. If you then move to the print module, that aspect ratio is preserved unless you check the "zoom to fill" option. If you set the print module for 4 x 6 paper, it will show the actual dimensions of the printed area at the top left of the image. You can change this by changing the size of the margins in the right panel.

 

There is no reason to use JPEGs in this process. LR prints directly from the edited image in the catalog. I always print from raw files if I work only in LR, and when I bring an image back from photoshop, I print in LR directly from the TIFF produced in Photoshop.

 

However, I almost never print borderless, so the question is whether this would work with borderless printing as well--ending up with borderless on two sides, borders on the other 2. Perhaps some else knows. I'd have to try it to know.

[Ken Katz]

Andrew / paddler5: thank you both for your information. I will likely give the plug in described by Andrew a try, and if successful, I will describe on this thread. While I generally prefer the pain of smacking my fingers with a hammer instead of venturing into the LR Print module, based on paddler4's suggestion, I did give it a try. By setting the "Cell size" to 4x6" and the "Custom File Dimensions" to 4x6" (which changed the "Paper" to "Custom Size" for some reason), the files produced were letterbox for images not 1x1.5 ratio, and full bleed for images cropped to 1x1.5, which is exactly what I need. When I pressed the "Print to File" button, it brought up a File Explorer window (Windows 11 machine) and needed a file name to proceed. I would want a more automated process for multiple files, like when exporting jpeg files to disk. Looked up LR help, which was no help at all of course.

 

Just an explanation of my process, I have not had a photo printer for at least 1 1/2 decades, and generate jpegs for printing that are uploaded to various printing services (Adorama / CVS). I have never printed through LR directly. Using consumer based printers, when ordering 4x6" prints the automations will print full bleed images cropped to 1x1.5 with minimal loss of image and will crop other file ratios to fill the 4x6" paper. Some services will have an option for a boarder but I have never tried that. Adorama was unique in offering a letterbox feature which would print without cropping, as long as you are OK with white borders on 2 sides of the print.

[rconey]

I second the "do it yourself" sentiment. I print about 40 Christmas cards of the family every year on my Canon i9900 photo printer. Usually 5x7 but you can buy whatever size you want. I use photoshop/ACR so can do pretty much whatever I want. Last year was a collage since one son was out of the country. Easy breezy.

A small photo printer would cost maybe 40 bucks or so?

[Ken Katz]

As a final note to this topic.  I did use the LR print feature, as described above, to generate 4x6" prints in Letterbox format.  Should add that you should probably change "Color Management" to something like sRBG when sending the files to a printer like Adorama or CVS.  Only glitch is that LR creates file names corresponding to the folder that the files are sent to, so that if you send the files to a folder named "Test", the files will be named "Test 1", Test 2, ect".  Not a big deal except that if you are also using the original file names for reference, such information will be lost after the LR print module prints to file.  

Edited October 12, 2022 by Ken Katz

[Ed_Ingold]

You can use Lightroom to crop an image to a designated aspect ratio (e.g., 3:2), and copy (synchronize) that crop to any number of selected images. You can straighten and adjust those images as needed without fiddling with the aspect ratio. That process works especially well for borderless prints. If you want a certain border width, you can adjust the aspect ration accordingly (e.g., 3.75:5.75 for a 1/8" border), then use Photoshop to set a relative canvas size, thus imposing a fixed border which you can print, or send to a finishing service.

I use the first portion (crop and sync) when scanning slides and negatives with a camera. It takes only about 1/2 the time than required if you set the crop size for each image. It gives me the maximum amount of space to work with if I need to crop later for artistic or printing purposes.

Edited October 12, 2022 by Ed_Ingold