Is there an easy way to print 4 wallets (2x3) on a 4x6?

I have several photos that I'd like to print wallet-sized, but I want to put them on a 4x6 and have them printed as a normal 4x6 (cheaper that way) and then cut them apart. Does anyone have a good way to do this in software? I have iPhoto 6, Picasa, and PSE (I think- I think it came with my scanner).

Thanks so much!

in PSE, open the 4 photos and resize them to 2 inches by three inches large. create a new canvas that is 4 x 6. Cut and paste the four photos onto that canvas, moving them around so they all fit. Flatten the layers and save as a jpg.

If you can't figure it out, send me the files and I can do it for you. Just PM me and I'll send you my email.

You can also do it at any Kodak photo kiosk at Walmart, etc. with almost no effort.

• CMLeach Said:

be careful with that paper, though. It's not the greatest quality. I used to install those machines at my job and while I loved all the borders and stuff, I hated that my color laser printer at home did a better job of printing photos.

I've never had an issue with it, minus when I scrapped a pic with a sharp edge, but that would have happened no matter whose paper, etc.

• CMLeach Said:

The Powers that be where I used to work actually warned store staff to discourage people from using them after awhile, because of the amount of quality complaints we were getting. Plus it was also twice as much as a regular print.

Thanks for the info. That's why I only use them for when I need just a few pics. *shrug* I generally use Kodak's mail service now, or Walgreen's one hour.

I have not used the latest version of iPhoto... but past versions had some great templates built in to easily print different sizes. Though I use the cut and paste method in photoshop.

• addictedToPaper Said:

I just did this same size, 2x3's on a 4x6 and I only know of Ritz/Wolf Camera shop that offers this w/their Kodak Kiosk machine. Not ALL Kodak machines at every store offers the same exact options. I was soooo happy when they showed me this option cuz I have a special frame that houses many 2x3 photos BUT don't like the prices at most Kodak machines for this size AND u have 2 use the same photo for the entire sheet. At Ritz/Wolf camera store u can choose different photos to put on the same 4x6 print, so now I just go 2 Ritz/Wolf Camera shop and pay the standard .26 for each 4x6 print and get 4 2x3 prints.

the PSE option is what I use for printing small and/or odd sized photos.

Thanks for the PSE tips! I tried it last night and had a problem, though. Everything wanted to paste in at 72 DPI, so of course it came out looking awful when I picked them up this morning (luckily, I only experimented with one print of wallets). Problem is, that's what the software said my photos were (out of a Nikon D70? I know it's shooting much higher res than that!!!). Maybe they got set to 72 DPI when I resized them to 2x3?

Also, what do you do when you want different, odd sizes- say a 4x4.5 inch crop out of a 4x6 photo? I don't see anywhere where the crop tool tells you how big the area you selected is. I love sketches and am trying to get my photos pre-sized for them (instead of having to find a 4x6 that can be cropped to the appropriate size- not good for me with a 200mm zoom...there's not much left to crop!!!). Does anyone have suggestions for that? Maybe a good PSE tutorial on resizing?

When you resize them, you can tell the program to resize at different dpi.

As for the the odd size crops.. why don't you just print the whole 4x6 and cut it down? you're still going to need to put it on a 4x6 canvas for printing anyway... I think I need clarification to help you.

For some photos I can print a 4x6 and cut it down. But if the sketch calls for something crazy like a 2.5x2 or a 3.25x4, I may not be able to crop that much without cutting into the subject or cutting out something else that I want. So if I can resize it and then crop a little, it would be better. The problem is that not every size I use is the same aspect ratio as a 4x6, so I can't simply resize a photo to the needed dimensions like I can when I need a 2x3. Is there some kind of crop tool you can use where you set the dimensions of the size you want, and then it makes your crops stay within that aspect ratio (even though it may be bigger, you can then resize it)? Picasa does this- you tell it you want a 4x6 or 5x7 or 8x10 crop and then resize your box in one dimension, and it automatically resizes it in the other dimension to keep the proper aspect ratio. Unfortunately, it only does so for those three sizes.

Does that help explain it?

Yes, it does. I know that Photoshop CS2 will let me take a 4x6 and resize it to whatever size I want it to be and stay in aspect ratio. There's a checkbox marked constrain proportions that if checked, will let you change one size and will auto calculate the other size for you. Does PSE have something like that under maybe Image Resize?

I'll have to check on that when I get home this evening (I'm at work right now). I hope that it has something like that!! I'd love an easier way to do this.

Thanks so much for your help!

Doh! I also use the ruler to do my actual crop. I create the crop box anywhere on the pic, use the ruler option to adjust the size of the box and then move the box over what I want to keep before I tell it to crop. I hope that makes sense.

I figured it out, and it turned out to be sooooo easy!!!

I have Photoshop Elements 2, so it might be a little different depending on your version.

I opened the image and clicked the crop tool. A little box (why didn't I notice it before?!?!) popped up in the toolbar with a place to set a width, a height, and a dpi. The dpi is very important to keep the same across all the crops and the new canvas you paste them to. I was making a 2x2.75 inch photo, so I entered that for width and height and also entered 600dpi (I need to experiment with this to see if it works okay for prints). Then I dragged to create the crop box, and the crop tool automatically adjusted the dimensions to be in the same aspect ratio as the width/height I entered in the box. Then I clicked the crop tool again, clicked "Crop" in the confirmation box that came up, and presto, my picture was cropped and sized exactly to my specifications!!

After I cropped all the photos to the sizes I wanted (these were all full size digital photos, and for many I selected nearly the entire full area of the image, but then had it resized to fit what I wanted) I selected File->New and created a new canvas with dimensions of 4x6 inches and a dpi of 600 (the same as my crops). Then select each of the images (Ctrl-A does a select all on an image) and paste them to the canvas and use the Move tool to arrange them to fit as many as possible (rotating if needed to make room- you'll cut them apart later anyway). When the canvas is as full as you can or want to make it, choose File->Save As... and save it as a .jpg (I used 12 for maximum quality). Then you can upload the .jpg to Wal-Mart or wherever to be printed.

I played with this last night, using the dimensions from the sketch on pg. 36 of Becky Fleck's new PageMaps book. I'm going to pick up my photos over lunch and see how they turned out. This is great for me as I love sketches with all the little photos, but can never find a 4x6 print that I can crop that small. Now I can have almost the entire image on a tiny print!