Apples

Apples

by Garik

submit your photo


Picture of the Week Themes
Suggest and vote on themes

Please participate in Meta
and help us grow.

Tell me more ×
Photography Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for professional, enthusiast and amateur photographers. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 3 down vote favorite

I would like to print my photos surrounded by white space (to simulate a mat border). Consider the following scenario: The picture frame fits an 8"x10" size photo but I make my photo smaller so that it is surrounded by white space with an optional logo printed in the white space. When I print it all is well but i have to measure and draw lines to cut the photo to the 8"x10" size. How can I print crop marks or a thin line not around the photo but on the outer extent of the page so that I have a visual guide for cutting. enter image description here

EDIT: I am using Canon ipf8300 plotter (36" roll)

share|improve this question
Could you add info about what printer you are using? Some printers restrict the printable area of the page...either because of design limitations, or to avoid certain problems printing on certain papers. Many more "consumer grade" printers can't do "bleed printing", or printing right to the edge. Higher end photo printers often can, but may restrict the margins of certain media types. – jrista♦ Jul 21 '12 at 2:25
@jrista — I'm not getting how that's relevant here. Can you explain further? – mattdm Jul 21 '12 at 6:25
Based on his sample photo, he's trying to print crop marks on the non-printable border of the page. That non-printable border is either due to the fact that his printer doesn't support bleed printing, or that he simply has selected a media type that has an explicit margin requirement, and selecting a different media type would allow him to print anything right up to the borders of the page. – jrista♦ Jul 21 '12 at 17:04
Thank @jrista. Added printer info above. – Jakub Jul 23 '12 at 13:09
1  
Ah, its a Prograf! So are you trying to create markers that help you cut the roll? I do not believe Lightroom itself will allow you to print anything quite like that. You'll probably have to open the image in Photoshop, lay it out as you want it, and manually put cut marks in the layout itself and save as a TIFF or something. – jrista♦ Jul 24 '12 at 2:55

1 Answer

up vote 1 down vote

You can add crop marks by setting either the Page > Page Options > Crop marks option (for the Single Image/Contact sheet layout style) or Page > Cut Guides (for the Picture Package and Custom Package layout styles) option to 'Crop Marks' but these will mark the border of the image that you print and cannot be adjusted.

When using the 'Picture Package' or 'Custom Package' layout styles you can use the 'Print border' option to add some white space between the area marked by the crop marks and the border of the image, but based on your picture it likely won't be enough.

If this is the case then you can workaround this by creating a Custom Package with two overlapping Image Cells. The inner cell contains the image you want to print and the outer cell is used to generate the cut lines. The outer cell needs to have no image in it and be larger than the inner cell by the amount of white space you want. Setting the Page > Cut Guides setting to 'Lines' will then generate lines in the position you want.

share|improve this answer
Thanks! Cut guides or crop marks don't work because they are around the image. I would like to print cut lines but around the perimeter of the page. – Jakub Jul 23 '12 at 13:18
OK. I see what you mean by the workaround. This way i would have to make my empty backgrounds to match the size i want and position the photo over the background. Cumbersome but possible. I just don't see a good way of aligning the background and the foreground images. There is also a message saying that some cells on the overlapping images may look incorrect when printed. I will try to spend more time on this when I have a chance. – Jakub Jul 23 '12 at 13:40

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.