After my post on printing in unusual sizes, someone asked me how you can print the smaller sizes at a place like Costco. If you invest in Photoshop Elements (I think it’s around $70), you can actually recoup your expenses in the long run if you print lots and lots of small pictures.
Why is that?
Because after you re-size your pictures, you can drag those smaller pictures onto one canvas and print them on a single 4×6.
For example, you can crop six photos into 2×2, create a 4×6 canvas, and drag the six photos onto the canvas. You’ll print all six photos as one 4×6 print. Six photos for the price of one 4×6 print!
Pretty awesome.
Printing Multiple Photos Onto a 4×6 Print
Sometimes I want a very unusual size, like I might digitally crop a photo to 3×6.5. When I do this I’m not looking for that specific size, necessarily. It’s just that when I’m working on the cropping, that’s the size that I happen to think looks cool for that photo.
Here’s a 4×6 print I developed most recently. The white gap in the middle is the extra space on the print. The photos on the left are 3×2. The photo on the right is 2×4.
The other two photos for the layout fit on one other 4×6 print. I cropped them into individual photos and put my layout together:
It’s most economical to print on 4×6′s, because they cost significantly less than the enlarged sizes.
But I’ve also found I use much less product when I have enlarged photos, since they take up so much space. So that extra cost for enlarging may end up a wash when when you factor savings in scrapbook supplies.
Here are some of the more typical sizes I tend to print in…
Unusual Sizes I typically Print
2×2
You can fit six 2×2′s onto a 4×6 print using Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.
2×3
You can fit four 2×3 photos onto a 4×6 print.
3×3 or 4×4
Place two 3×3′s, or one 2×3 + one 3×3 on a 4×6 print.
6×6, 6×8, or 8×8
I place one picture of these sizes onto an 8×8 print.
Or I like to do grid collages like the one above in the 8×8 size.
9×9 or 8×12
These sizes would both go on an 8×12 print. If I’m doing a 9×9 photo, that still leaves me room for quite a few 3×3 photos all around the edges of the print, so I often add photos of that size to the print, whether they’re for the same layout or a different one.
I would not have been able to showcase the beauty of our desert to the same degree, nor the fun of being out there that morning with 4×6 photos. Both the focal point photo and the collage on the right are 8×12′s.
Costco prints in all of these sizes, plus larger ones. Non-local printers, such as Persnickety also prints and even more.
How to Drag Cropped Photos onto a 4×6 or Other Size Print
I have a tutorial that I made for Paperclipping Members a while back that shows how to drag photos onto one canvas as a collage, and then make the digital round-corner frame on top of it that you see in the Tea Time layout above.
Here’s another one:
Member’s can find this tutorial in the Member’s Area or on iTunes. It’s Paperclipping 108.
Or, if you’re not a member, you can hop over here and sign up! What have you been waiting for?
Other related tutorials in the archives that Paperclipping Members can watch are:
- A Square-based Template
- A Collage Formula
- A Multi-Photo Template
- Four Ways to Embellish a Collage Template
- Make a Grid Collage in Photoshop
- Invisible Grids
You can learn about a Paperclipping Membership by visiting our Membership Information Page.
