Printing out a picture exactly as it appears on the computer screen

[dadagfas]

Hello,

I have a picture in A4 I absolutely must have in exacty the same size as it appears on the computer screen.

Now, the thing is, that when printing on normal printer, the printer cannot use the whole area of the paper, and 3-5mm white is added to every side. That means the picture is a printed 6-10mm smaller as it appeared on the computer. The printed picture is diminished

I have been told to create my picture on a overlarge paper, that is the machine prints the A4 paper in 216x303mm, and the finally cuts from every side 3-4mm. That results in the paper as printed appear somewhat close to 297x210mm. The picture should look almost exactly the same as on computer, only some mm larger or smaller.

Now the question is, how can I make a picture appear to the printer (machine at a company) as a 216x303mm picture (from with it the can cut 3-4mm from every side), although the picture itself is only 210x297mm? Can I do it with paint.net? Any other free programme?

Thank you in advance.

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Your monitor has a resolution of 96 pixels per inch. If you want an exact reproduction get your printer to use the resolution of 96 dots per inch. This will make it a 1:1 reproduction.

Of course it will look terrible when printed at this low resolution because there is a massive difference between the two media.

What you should have done is multiplied your desired final image dimensions by 300 and used that as you initial canvas size. Then printed the image at 300DPI irrespective of the size it appeared on the monitor.

Good luck with the project.

[midora]

Every standard printer has a non-printable border on the paper. The reason is that it is not possible to feed the paper exactly at the same position. Depending on the mechanical quality of the printer this border is smaller or larger.

 

Every borderless printout is cutted after printing.

 

If your printer allows you to use a larger papersize then just select the new paper format (if the printer is not able to auto-select).

You do not have to modify your image if Paint.NET tells you in the resize dialog that the 'print size' is what you expect.

If this is the case then just print the image unscaled to the new paper format.

[dadagfas]

Thank you for your replies, but I am doing the printing at a printing company, i.e. I will not use my own printer but a printing service company´s printer. I give them the pictures and they add those to the system. Does your advice apply also then?

[midora]

Thank you for your replies, but I am doing the printing at a printing company, i.e. I will not use my own printer but a printing service company´s printer. I give them the pictures and they add those to the system. Does your advice apply also then?

 

You have to ask them what they need. It may be that they ask you to deliver the images in a larger format with crop marks.

 

Paint.NET is not a DTP application and there is no printing option which allows you to select a larger paper size for printing and adds the crop marks automatically. Whatyou may do is to create an empty image template containing the crop marks and place your images on top.