Resize to 1800x12003:2
1800x1200 px, 3:2. 1800x1200. Print quality for a 6 inch wide, 4 inch tall photo.
Trims the edges that do not fit, so nothing is squashed.
Faces near the top of a tall photo? Pick Top. Check the preview after it runs.
JPEG for photos. PNG for logos, text and transparency.
Your photo is never uploaded. The crop and the resize happen inside this browser tab, so nothing is sent to a server, nothing is stored, and nothing is shared. Free, unlimited, no signup, no watermark.
4x6 photo size in pixels: 1800x1200 at 300 DPI
A 4 by 6 inch print is a 3:2 rectangle. At the 300 dots per inch that photo labs call print quality, that is 1800 by 1200 pixels for a landscape print or 1200 by 1800 for a portrait one. At 200 DPI, the lowest most services accept without a resolution warning, it is 1200 by 800. The DPI number itself is not stored anywhere that matters; the pixel count is what the lab reads.
The catch is the shape. Phone cameras shoot 4:3, so every phone photo has to lose a strip to become 3:2, and the lab's default centre crop is where heads get cut off in group shots. The tool above does the crop on your device with the position you choose, writes exactly 1800x1200 (or the portrait or 200 DPI sizes), and gives you a JPG to upload to the print service or carry to a kiosk on a phone.
| Use | Pixels | Ratio | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Landscape 300 DPI | 1800x1200 | 3:2 | 1800x1200. Print quality for a 6 inch wide, 4 inch tall photo. |
| Portrait 300 DPI | 1200x1800 | 2:3 | 1200x1800. The same print turned upright. |
| Landscape 200 DPI | 1200x800 | 3:2 | 1200x800. The smallest most labs accept without a quality warning. |
| Portrait 200 DPI | 800x1200 | 2:3 | 800x1200. Use only when the source photo is small to begin with. |
How to resize a photo for a 4x6 print
- Drop the photos above, up to 20 at a time. Use the originals from the camera roll, not copies that were sent through a messaging app, which shrinks them.
- Pick Landscape 300 DPI for wide shots or Portrait 300 DPI for upright ones. If you are printing a mixed set, run the landscapes and the portraits as two batches.
- Set Keep this part. Top for standing people and anything with a horizon high in the frame, Centre for most scenes, Bottom when the subject is low.
- Download, or Download ZIP for the batch, then upload to Walgreens, CVS, Shutterfly, Snapfish or your local lab, or copy the files to a USB stick for a kiosk. Leave the lab's crop tool alone; the photo already fits.
Borders, old photos, and small sources
Some labs print borderless only. If you want a white border, switch to Pad to fit with White: the whole photo is placed inside the 3:2 frame with even margins and the lab prints the margins as part of the image. This is also the way to print a square photo or a panorama on 4x6 paper without losing any of it.
Scans of old prints and screenshots are often well under 1200 pixels on the short side. The row will tell you the image had to be enlarged. Plain enlargement prints soft; the AI image upscaler reconstructs detail first and runs on your device too, so the workflow is upscale, then come back here to crop to 1800x1200.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a 4x6 photo size in pixels?
- 1800 by 1200 pixels at 300 DPI, which is the standard for a sharp print. The maths is 6 inches times 300 dots per inch for the long side and 4 inches times 300 for the short side. At 200 DPI, which most labs still accept without a warning, it is 1200 by 800. Turn both around for a portrait print: 1200x1800 or 800x1200.
- Why does the lab crop my photo?
- Because a 4x6 print is a 3:2 rectangle and most phone photos are 4:3. The lab's default is a centre crop to 3:2, which loses a strip from the top and bottom and routinely takes the top of someone's head. Cropping here first, with Keep this part set to Top for a standing group, means the lab has nothing left to trim.
- Do I need to set the DPI in the file?
- No. Print labs and photo kiosks read the pixel dimensions, not the DPI tag; DPI is just a label that says how to spread those pixels over paper. A 1800x1200 file prints as a sharp 4x6 whatever the tag says. That is why this tool talks in pixels and does not pretend to write a DPI value.
- Is 200 DPI good enough?
- For a 4x6 held at arm's length, yes. 300 DPI is the point where individual pixels are invisible even close up; 200 DPI is the floor where most services stop flagging a low-resolution warning. Use the 300 DPI sizes whenever the source photo is large enough, and the 200 DPI sizes only when it is not, rather than enlarging a small photo to 1800x1200 and printing the softness.
- Which format should I send to the lab?
- JPEG. Every kiosk, pharmacy photo counter and online print service takes JPG, and a 1800x1200 JPEG at the quality this tool uses is around 500KB to 1MB, fast to upload and indistinguishable from PNG on paper. Pad to fit with a white border gives you a bordered print if the lab offers borderless only.
- Are my photos uploaded here?
- No. Nothing is uploaded here: the crop runs in your browser and the file goes straight from your device to the lab when you choose to send it there. Family photos never touch our servers because we do not have any in the loop.