I recently bought a digital camera, and used it to take numerous photos on a trip abroad. To my considerable annoyance, after I returned I learned that digital photos are formatted to be 4.5x6 inches rather than the standard 4x6. As far as I can tell, after calling up several photo shops, my only two options are either to 1) have the pictures cropped to 4x6 (which might eliminate important material, or 2) pay a fairly high price ($0.39/photo, even for a Ritz member like me) to have Ritz Camera develop them in 4.5x6 (the other shops I called don't develop in 4.5x6 at all). I realize that I could manually crop the photos on my computer. But that's not a realistic alternative because there are too many of them and I'm not good at cropping. I bet that many VC readers probably know more than I do about digital cameras (not a high bar to clear, to be sure). So here's my question. Is there any way I can do one of the following:

1. Have the pictures resized to 4x6 WITHOUT cropping of either the automatic or manual variety - and at a reasonable price.

2. Have them printed at 4.5x6 at a price significantly lower than Ritz's (20-25 cents/photo or less would be acceptable).

I suspect that I'm not the only person who has encountered this problem with digital photos. So I'm hoping that someone more savvy about digital cameras than I am has come up with a good solution.

Please don't waste your time writing comments proving that I should have investigated this issue before buying the camera. I already know I made a mistake on that point. But it simply did not occur to me that the designers of digital cameras (an otherwise extremely impressive technology, in my humble opinion) would commit so fundamental an error as to make it seemingly impossible to convert photos to the standard 4x6 size without cropping. Live and learn.

Thanks in advance to all who respond!

Thanks to all who responded to my bleg on digital photo resizing. Pursuing one of the suggestions offered by commenters, I have downloaded a digital photo resizing program. Unfortunately, the resizing options are listed in terms of pixels rather than inches (i.e. -640x480 pixels instead of 4x6 inches). My question for you experts out there (or just those whose ignorance is less profound then mine): What pixel option should I choose to resize digital 4.5x6 photos to the standard 4x6, so I can then print them out in 4x6 size without cropping (my original objective)?

Thanks!