Crop Factor - Printing

[jmtonkin]

Hey all,

After my trip through Wyoming, I came back and wanted to get some prints made. I realized a big problem: to get "standard" print sizes, I had to crop my pictures quite a bit. I didn't realize this when shooting, so they are not composed with the crop in mind.

My question for you: when you are shooting, do you leave extra space so you can crop for printing?

Thanks!


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[Ysarex]

No. I only crop for the sake of the composition. When I print the photo I don't crop it to fit the paper size, I size it to fit within the paper size. For example if I decide the image is best as a square then I print an 8x8 on 8x10 paper.

Joe

 

[jmtonkin]

What happened for me is that I had a shot that I wanted to print as an 8x10, but in order to do so, I had to crop two inches from the shot.


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[tirediron]

That's perfectly normal. It's a result of the aspect ratio of your sensor being a 3:2 and you're trying to print at 4:5. Some cameras will allow you to change the aspect ratio internally, but I prefer to simply account for it in my composition. As an alternative, and because of this, I've noticed that 8x12 prints are becoming quite popular.

 

[jmtonkin]

I don't have an issue with the 8x12, but I've discivered that it's nearly impossible to find a cheap frame.

I think I'll just keep this in mind when composing my shots!

 

[sscarmack]

I usually leave space for group shots, most group shots I print are 8x10, which requires cropping, once I had to cut off a shoulder, boy oh boy was I pissed.

You live you learn.

 

[Ido]

What happened for me is that I had a shot that I wanted to print as an 8x10, but in order to do so, I had to crop two inches from the shot.


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Print it as it is. It won't fill the entire page, no big deal. You can cut the paper afterwards.

 

[jmtonkin]

What happened for me is that I had a shot that I wanted to print as an 8x10, but in order to do so, I had to crop two inches from the shot.

Print it as it is. It won't fill the entire page, no big deal. You can cut the paper afterwards.

The problem is that I don't want to lose anything in my composition. I know now that I need to frame and compose my shots with this consideration.

 

[Alexr25]

The problem is that I don't want to lose anything in my composition.

So the question is do you want a big photo or a good photo? If all you want is to get the maximum size then crop for the print aspect ratio, but if you want to get the best out of your photograph then crop for the subject matter and don't worry about the final aspect ratio. You can always put it in a bigger frame with a mat cut to suit the picture. In fact I always frame my photos with mats cut to suit, that way I don't have to worry about aspect ratios.

 

[bratkinson]

I learned about print cropping the 'hard way'. I had been letting the Epson printer software decide on its own of how to crop each picture. Unfortunately, its decisions weren't what I wanted so I started playing with pre-cropping the photos to get the printer software to 'decide' in my favor.

Then I 'discovered' the pre-defined cropping sizes in Photoshop Elements. THAT changed my methods dramatically!

As I wear glasses all the time, I generally 'shoot wide'. That's good, in my estimation. It leaves me a good deal of 'croppability'. My editing is a bit screwy, as I prefer Lightroom over PSE. So, I do the majority of my editing in LR, cropping only to make horizontal lines horizontal and removing distracting elements if near the edge. My semi-finished work is the output to a folder. I then copy that folder a 'screen-size cropped' folder, and copy selected photos only to separate folders 4x6, 5x7, 8x10, or whatever. Then, I process each folder in PSE, cropping the pictures to the desired sizes. That way, I crop the pictures exactly as I want them for each print size. Then when I print to pre-cut photo paper, the images come out exactly like I want them to be.

 

[Ido]

What happened for me is that I had a shot that I wanted to print as an 8x10, but in order to do so, I had to crop two inches from the shot.

Print it as it is. It won't fill the entire page, no big deal. You can cut the paper afterwards.

The problem is that I don't want to lose anything in my composition. I know now that I need to frame and compose my shots with this consideration.

You still won't lose anything. If it's an 8x10 paper, print it as if it were 9x6 or 10x6.66, for example. You'll have white bars on each side - just cut them afterwards. You'll have a lovely print of the photo as you shot it (if its aspect ratio is 3:2).

 

[astroNikon]

I learned about print cropping the 'hard way'. I had been letting the Epson printer software decide on its own of how to crop each picture. Unfortunately, its decisions weren't what I wanted so I started playing with pre-cropping the photos to get the printer software to 'decide' in my favor.

Then I 'discovered' the pre-defined cropping sizes in Photoshop Elements. THAT changed my methods dramatically!

As I wear glasses all the time, I generally 'shoot wide'. That's good, in my estimation. It leaves me a good deal of 'croppability'. My editing is a bit screwy, as I prefer Lightroom over PSE. So, I do the majority of my editing in LR, cropping only to make horizontal lines horizontal and removing distracting elements if near the edge. My semi-finished work is the output to a folder. I then copy that folder a 'screen-size cropped' folder, and copy selected photos only to separate folders 4x6, 5x7, 8x10, or whatever. Then, I process each folder in PSE, cropping the pictures to the desired sizes. That way, I crop the pictures exactly as I want them for each print size. Then when I print to pre-cut photo paper, the images come out exactly like I want them to be.

You can do this same thing in LightRoom.
When you click the Crop Overlay
under neath it to the right of Aspect is normally "As Shot"
Change this to what size you want .. 4x5/8x10 or 5x7 or 2x3/4x6 or other options there.
Then the crop box stays to a specified size. You can adjust it to be vertical or horizontal.

 

[jmtonkin]

What happened for me is that I had a shot that I wanted to print as an 8x10, but in order to do so, I had to crop two inches from the shot.

Print it as it is. It won't fill the entire page, no big deal. You can cut the paper afterwards.

The problem is that I don't want to lose anything in my composition. I know now that I need to frame and compose my shots with this consideration.

You still won't lose anything. If it's an 8x10 paper, print it as if it were 9x6 or 10x6.66, for example. You'll have white bars on each side - just cut them afterwards. You'll have a lovely print of the photo as you shot it (if its aspect ratio is 3:2).

This might sound like a stupid question, but do you have a recommendation for a printing service that I can print a 10x6.66 or a 9x6? Maybe I'm just missing it, but the ones I've looked at don't have those sizes. Also, that comes back to the frame issues. I'm not looking to spend a lot on framing these, as I only want them for personal use. I go to Walmart and I can pretty much guarantee that I won't find that size. I can't even find an 8x12 which is what I was originally hoping for.


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[CameraClicker]

What happened for me is that I had a shot that I wanted to print as an 8x10, but in order to do so, I had to crop two inches from the shot.

Print it as it is. It won't fill the entire page, no big deal. You can cut the paper afterwards.

The problem is that I don't want to lose anything in my composition. I know now that I need to frame and compose my shots with this consideration.

You still won't lose anything. If it's an 8x10 paper, print it as if it were 9x6 or 10x6.66, for example. You'll have white bars on each side - just cut them afterwards. You'll have a lovely print of the photo as you shot it (if its aspect ratio is 3:2).

This might sound like a stupid question, but do you have a recommendation for a printing service that I can print a 10x6.66 or a 9x6? Maybe I'm just missing it, but the ones I've looked at don't have those sizes. Also, that comes back to the frame issues. I'm not looking to spend a lot on framing these, as I only want them for personal use. I go to Walmart and I can pretty much guarantee that I won't find that size. I can't even find an 8x12 which is what I was originally hoping for.


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Figure out what size they print that is a little bigger than the dimensions you want. Give them a file for that size of paper, fill the border with white, black, or whatever. When the print is delivered, cut it to the required size. If you are framing it with a mat, you can even leave it larger as long as the hole in the mat is in the right place.

If someone wants a portrait to fit a 5 X 7 frame and another copy to fit an 8 X 10 frame, you need enough space to do both crops, or you can replace the background if it was shot too tight and it was done with a suitable background.

Sometimes the crop matters, sometimes the dimensions matter. Sometimes both matter and you have to pick a compromise that works.

 

[bratkinson]

AstroNikon - yes, I've 'discovered' the predefined crop sizes in LR. But if I crop it there, I've "lost" the full picture unless I do an export cycle and come back and un-do the crop.

As an example, if I have reasons to print the same photograph at different sizes, it's quite labor-intensive (in my mind) to have to export, undo, recrop, export to another folder, etc. Note, too, that by having a 'too wide' original, fully edited picture to start from for each crop size, I can choose more or less headroom, etc, in each crop, that may be different than a different crop of the same photo. Also, when doing the Christmas card photo for our church pastors, I produce folders of each cropped-size photos on a USB thumb drive so wherever they go to get the Christmas cards printed, they have a choice of sizes to start from, as I have no idea what they require. I did the same for a number of pictures I took for one of the church members submitted to the local suburban news paper for an article they were going to print.