tomad Loc: North Carolina

I don't know what version of Luminar you're using but my 2018 Windows version you can just use the crop tool drop down menu and choose 3x2 or 2X3 depending on the orientation of your photo and it will automatically resize to a 4x6, 6x4 size keeping the largest amount of your photo possible. If it has to crop to do that it will show you what is cropped (equally at the sides or top and bottom and you can slide the photo side to side or up/down to get the preferred part of the image.

flferg Loc: Driftwood, TX

You need to realize this to figure out how to print. The resolution of your file is the number of pixels on your sensor, for instance approximately 4000x6000 for a 24mp sensor (FF or APS-C sensor) or other pixel ratio for a different sized sensor. When you crop with Luminar 2018 you open the file then click tools>crop>aspect ratio. Then resize the grid that appears over the photo to include the portion of the photo you want to appear in your photo and save and export the files. When you click save, Luminar saves a .lmnr file and when you click export it saves a jpg file. Note the more you crop the more pixels you are throwing away and this will affect the quality of your print but as long as your file has about 1800x1200 pixels you will get a good print at 4"x6".

Assume the original photo was taken using a camera with an APS-C sensor approximately 24 mm x 16 mm. Now that you have cropped the photo to 1800x1200 pixels you can imagine that the resulting image file is about 7.2mm x 4.8mm. Now think of printing as magnifying the file to the size print you want. Lots of printers print at about 300 dpi so when you print the subject file at 6"x4" there is an exact match between the dots (pixels) in the file and the resolution of the printer in dpi. Remember the printer can print up to 300 dpi but if you don't have that many dots in your file the printer can't make them up. As you noted in another post if you don't have a file with the correct aspect ratio you get a different size print.

flferg Loc: Driftwood, TX

No, Luminar does not resize to 4x6 if you specify a 2x3 crop. It simply produces a file with a 2x3 pixel ratio which can then be printed at 4x6 without resizing. The resolution of the print will then be good at 4x6 using a 300 dpi printer as long as you don't crop past 1200 pixels x 1800 pixels. Try cropping a file to 200 x 300 and see what a 4x6 print looks like.

Spirit Vision Photography Loc: Behind a Camera.

Irfanview works quite well.

SVP

rayofgray

Well, much thanks to all of you for trying to help. What I still don't understand is why in the world Luminar (and Affinity) choose to express the dimensions of their prints in pixel, unlike Photoshop Elements. Not to prolong this discussion, but can anybody explain that?

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

You are asking the wrong people. Write an email to Luminar.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

You're welcome.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

You aren't fully understanding this. 1200x1800 printed at 300 ppi will give you exactly a 4x6 image. Send this to your printer or lab, and tell it to print it full size on a 4x6 sheet of paper and you will get the full size if selecting the borderless option, or slightly smaller if you opt for a border.

If you can't print a 1200x1800 pixel image to 4x6 the problem is in your procedure. You are stuck on this notion of "resizing in pixels" thing - 1200x1800 or some multiple of this is exactly what you want. You can size the image to 2400x3600 and tell the printer or lab to fill a 4x6 sheet of paper, borderless, and the print will be exactly the same size, but with a higher resolution of 600 ppi.