Digital photo cropping issues

[iGuy]

I pick out digital pics on my computer I want made into photos.  Open them into Graphic Converter.  Touch them up and crop the picture so it will center up the subject area.  I then reduce the pic down to 4 x 6 which is the size picture I am wanting created.  For some reason, when I get the completed photos from the photo lab, the top of someones head is cropped off.  Can someone tell me how I can use Graphic Converter the correct way so this problem won't continue to happen.

Ryan

[Mrious_be]

my advice is a general one... do not crop any of your pictures on exactly the "view" you want to have, always leave some border.
I'm not sure what happened on the lab, but i guess they just took some wrong coordinates.
I once went to make a new negative from an existing old picture and all that the guy at the store did, was marking the area i wanted to have and he made a new pict from it.
Sooo, maybe it's better if you also make some prints out from the pictures you want to have developped and give it to the lab also.

As for the rest, i can't answer what happened as i don't know the technology they use to do so.

[Bruce_F]

I haven't used a local photo lab to process my digital prints, but you should be able to instruct them to NOT crop the image.

The lab you use may have some guidlines for you to follow for the best dimensions to start with.

[Thomas S. England]

Beyond cropping, are you making sure that the resolution (ppi) of your files match the resolution used during the printing?

There are two aspects to always consider when dealing with a digital image file:

1. the physical deminsions (cropping to size)

2. The resolution (such as 72 ppi, 300 ppi, etc.)

A change in #2 may impact on #1.