Printer crops the picture when printing from Photoshop

[mahfoudhhi]

Hello everyone:
When I print from Photoshop CS6, the printer (Epson R3000) produces cropped picture (about 1/2 cm) from all sides (Up, Bottom, Both sides) a bit than it appears in the picture and in print preview. paper size is (10X15 cm)
I usually choose borderless, and Scale to fit media. the picture comes covered (no white colours or space)
Any idea why this happens, and How can I correct this problem?
Thank you in advance.

[RustBeltRaw]

If you're printing borderless, the printer will cut off some portion of the photo to make sure no white edges show up. If your photo's aspect ratio is significantly different from the paper, borderless printing can remove considerable chunks of the image. How much is removed depends on how accurately the printer aligns its paper, but as far as I know, that's not a published statistic for most printers. However, the printer will inevitably feed the paper at an imperfect angle, so the printer's built-in cropping is probably designed to prevent whitespace even when the feed isn't perfect.

The best solution is probably to print on larger paper, to make sure the whole image shows up with no cropping. The extra whitespace can be helpful for framing, since the framer usually needs a bleed (unprinted border) around the photo to avoid cropping it once the frame is fitted. I usually go up a size - my 8x10in prints are on 11x14in media, and my 11x14-inchers are on 13x19in.

[mahfoudhhi]

Thank you very much for replying Lex, but two more questions please:
if I print with border, will it be accurate? no more cropping?
what do you mean by saying you usually go up a size? could you please explain more?
many thanks again.

[Cantab]

Thank you very much for replying Lex, but two more questions please:
if I print with border, will it be accurate? no more cropping?
what do you mean by saying you usually go up a size? could you please explain more?
many thanks again.

Hafedh, I don't use an Epson printer so some of my comments may not work for you.

I'll explain what I think Lex meant when he said go up a size. If you want your final print to be 8 inches by 10 inches and you want to put it in a frame with space for matting the picture, Lex prints his 8in by 10in photo on the next bigger size of paper. This is so that the matting (often made from a type of cardboard) inside the picture frame can anchor the photo paper without covering up any of the image.

If my arithmetic is correct, your 10cm by 15cm paper is the same as the 4 inches by 6 inches paper that I often use so you may not be thinking of framing these photos.

I see you are using the software to do an automated resizing of your photos so that they fit the paper you use. What I do before printing is to use Photoshop to resize the image so that it is about 3.75 inches by 5.75. That way I control the size of the image sent to the printer. I like small borders so my resizing produces a small white border around each picture.

If you resize the photos yourself, you should turn off "Scale to fit media".

Lex raised another very important point. If the ratio between the long and short sides of your picture (the aspect ratio) is not the same as your paper (10:15 or 2:3), something will have to be cut off or there will be a strip of white. If I'm printing on 10cm by 15cm paper, I sometimes first crop the photo so that its aspect ratio is 10:15.

I hope this may help.

[mahfoudhhi]

Thank you Bruce.
what you said is clear and helpful. I realize now that there is nothing wrong with my settings. what happens is normal. If I need to correct this problem I have modify a few things.
thanks again.

[BDM]

I don't know if this answers your question exactly, but I had the same problem when I changed from CS5 to CS6. I couldn't find the fit to media button in the later version. It had been moved slightly. I then scrolled down a bit and found it. I then had no further problems.