Aspect ratio's are giving me a headache...help!

[Jim Walczak]

Hi All,
I'm back with my next round of questions that have been frustrating me...this time in regards to aspect ratios for printing digital photo's. Now I have been looking around on the web all morning and the more info I find, the more my head hurts! LOL!

Now let me first say, I'm using an Olympus C-4000 and it does have the 3:2 aspect ratio option (35mm equiv) and this is what I've been using to shoot my pics. With a little bit of effort, I've been able to get some decent 4x6 prints done (with plain white borders! Yea!) and their coming out pretty well...I'm having a bit of a problem with the calibration of their equipment being different from mine, but I think I found a good work around. Anyways...I'm not ready to start printing out some larger size photo's. There is a local nature center in my area that want's to do a gallery of my work in February (Big YEA!!!) and I'm going to need to print out several 8x10's to be matted and framed and a few even larger...now here's the problem. The aspect ratio of an 8x10 is different from that of both 4x6's and even 6x8's...who came up with this freakin stuff????? By my math, to keep the 3:2 aspect ratio, a picture "should" be 8x12 and not 8x10, but I'm not sure I've ever seen any place that prints 8x12's.

Ok...I guess what I'm asking here is; does anyone know of an easy way to do aspect ratio conversion in, say PhotoShop? I'm certainly not new to Photoshop or image editing, but I seem to be having problems with this...when I go to do crops and such, in order to get the pics to the correct print size, I always seem to inadvertantly end up doing a little bit of a manual resize on the pics which will push the picture one way or the other slightly out of it's original size/dimension...granted this isn't usually a big problem, but I would like to keep my images as close to original (barring contrast, color, saturation corrections, etc). Can someone either share with me how they work around this or point me in the direction of an "easy to understand" website or something in reference to dealing with this issue?

Again, these photos are going to be displayed in my first gallery showing (and will also be for sale!), so simply doing them on an inkjet...even a decent one, is not going to cut it...I -have- to have these done as prints. Also I need to avoid having these done through places "online" such as SnapFish or something as I will need to review the photo's -before- I pay for them.

As always I'm grateful for your collective wisdom and experience...thanks!
Bright Blessings & Gentle Breezes,
Jim

 

[TwistMyArm]

I think 8x10s became the norm because most professionals would use medium format cameras because you can get sharper more detailed photos. This is because the negative itself is larger (4x5).
As you stated already the 35mm ratio is 3x2. I guess gallery owners are just so used to the MF prints that they expect all large prints to be 8x10. Of course that doesn't fit with 35mm which converts to 8x12 instead. The only real way to convert it is by loosing some of the print. You may have to crop off two inches.
You could also always try asking the nature centre if 8x12 prints are acceptable.

 

[Corry]

I don't know much about the ratio thing, either, but I do know you can get 8x12s. I know even the machine at Walgreens where I work can do 8x12 prints, though I'm sure you are getting yours printed at a much nicer place! Point is, though, that if Walgreens has it, I'm sure a professional lab will, too!

 

[green]

most places can do 8x12s... and since many people have had the same problems... i've even noticed that at some photo places they're selling 8x12 frames now. no sense chopping off something if you don't need to.

 

[jadin]

I only have photoshop 7, so it might be different for you.

Using the rectangular marquee tool, where it says style, change it to fixed size. There you can enter in your width and heigh in pixels.

 

[BernieSC]

Most labs that print 8x10 should be able to print 8x12 because the paper comes in 8inch and and 11 inch rolls. So if the lab has a channel for 8x12 they could print it. Because the 11 and 12 in 8x10 and 8x12 is the length or the amount of paper coming off the roll when it is printed. And a lot of labs use an 8x10 mask so they have to trim the print anyway when it is printed.

 

[Digital Matt]

If you want to crop, I find an easy way is to open a new document that is 8x10 (it's a preset PS size), and paste your 8x12 sized photo into it. You can then move your photo around and decide on the best crop.

I personally only print 8x10s when I have to. I print 8x12s and sell 8x12s, and if I need a custom matte and frame, I go to americanframe.com