Cropping and Printing

[Ereefic]

I recently cropped some pics and had them printed out and they look horrible!! I'm assuming i've cropped them too much, but you can't tell when looking at them on the PC. Are there any tips or tricks to knowing if you crop too much, before getting them printed?

I'm using the Rebel XT and shot the pics in 'Large' Format, if that helps. And the prints were 4x6.

 

[gregr]

Printing has about as much to it as reefkeeping- simple it is not.
There's so much to it that I've given up and have all my printing done at a professional lab
Anyhow- you need to look at the resolution of the photo- it is listed in dots per inch [dpi]. If you have Photoshop you will find this info under the image resize dialog-- it's the bottom part of the dialog box. I'm guessing your picture was 72dpi, which is the default for internet jpegs. Ideally the printer would like to see 300dpi (!) so you can see there is a huge file size difference.
This is one of the reasons why it's recommended to always shoot at the highest quality level your camera offers.

edit:
I meant to add that if you don't have photoshop you can find the dpi in the image adjustments dialog in Irfanview, which is a free program.