I'm pretty sure it means "fit the print to the requested size, adding a white border on the top/bottom or left/right if required". The other option would be "crop", which would mean "crop the print to the requested size, filling the printable area, but chopping off the top/bottom or left/right if required".
i recently had the same issue with a 16x20 print of mine. i went through the private print store and purchased the print and it said (fit) which didn't make sense because it was a 16x20 so i just lowered the price on my own print and bought it from the public store to rid myself of worry
My understanding is that "Fit" comes up when the print size you are ordering has the same ratio as the print file (i.e., it fits). "Crop" comes up if you are trying to order an 8x10 from an 8x12 file for example.
Eddy is correct. We have to tell the printer what to do if the print file dimension don't exactly match the dimensions of the requested print -- either to 'fit' or to 'crop' the print to that size. As Eddy said, 'fit' means add white space around the image to fit the size. If we calculate them to exactly match, we still have to send a crop/fit option, and we send 'fit' by default. Chances are pretty good I should either make that more clear or figure out a way not to show it in the correct circumstances. Sorry for the confusion!
so every image is shrunk to accomodate a white border?
No, a white border would only be added to the print if your photo was not already at the correct aspect ratio. (i.e., you were trying to print a 4:3 photo right from your camera, with no cropping, as an 8x10).
If you crop to the correct aspect ratio for your desired print size, then there will be no "white border" added.
Eddy is correct. We have to tell the printer what to do if the print file dimension don't exactly match the dimensions of the requested print -- either to 'fit' or to 'crop' the print to that size. As Eddy said, 'fit' means add white space around the image to fit the size. If we calculate them to exactly match, we still have to send a crop/fit option, and we send 'fit' by default. Chances are pretty good I should either make that more clear or figure out a way not to show it in the correct circumstances. Sorry for the confusion!
Drew
The ideal would be to display a schematic print preview (like page layout programs do) to show how the image fits (or doesn't) on the selected paper.
Not sure if it's of any interest Drew, but www.photobox.co.uk have a fairly sophisticated system of crop line overlaying of thumbnails to show where the pic will be cropped. I found it very easy to grasp what was going to happen the first time I used it.
(They also allow you to use the mouse to select a rectangle to crop yourself, but that may be a bit too much for DPC.)
The ideal would be to display a schematic print preview (like page layout programs do) to show how the image fits (or doesn't) on the selected paper.
We already do this! When you order prints from us, if your image doesn't fit the exact ratio, we show you your crop or fit options. Unless someone tells me otherwise, I think it's a pretty good system, and it's worked well so far. The only time you're not shown your options is when your ratio matches exactly and there's no need for you to pick anything. The only thing that's really up for debate is that from a back-end perspective, we have to put in some value for what's called the position -- crop or fit. We choose fit, but it's really arbitrary. What should really happen is that if you have not chosen fit but have just been arbitrarily assigned fit because of the need for this default value, you shouldn't be shown that default value.
off the camera the images are a 1:50 ratio - all i did was resize it down some so it wouldnt be HUGE(r).
although i did try the 150dpi method suggested in the tips area, but found that the site set my 16x24" ( 9000x6000px )size as yellow ( so a 1MB file became a 10MB file) when i upped to 300dpi...
on 28K i would much prefer to upload 1MB files or less...
