Photo dimensions?

~Stella~ · Sep 3, 2007

What dimensions do you usually crop in? I have mostly 4x6 because I just print pictures of my kids, but for posting here, especially if one is not planning on actually printing the shot, what dimensions do most people use? Or is there a standard?

Thanks.

Sw1tchFX · Sep 3, 2007

Whatever doesn't destroy the composition.

astrostu · Sep 3, 2007

I don't crop unless I think I need to. In other words, when I process my photos, I generally leave the dimensions as-is and don't worry about cropping unless I decide to print, and then I fiddle with it.

The only recent exceptions have been photos of fireworks where I cropped out some nearby buildings and zoomed in on the actual fireworks.

Garbz · Sep 3, 2007

I have a 30x6 photo here

Simply plan your composition and the format makes no difference. Sometimes I intentionally zoom out a bit so I can crop to 5x4 afterwards.

The_Traveler · Sep 4, 2007

You need to think about the final use of your print.

If you plan on printing and matting it, crop your picture so that the .25 inch that fits under the mat on each side won't hurt the composition.

Note that the display area for prints with a mat is less than the nominal size.

4 x 5 -> 3.5 x 4.5
8 x10 -> 7.5 x 9.5
11 x 14 -> 10.5 x 13.5
16 x 20 -> 15.5 x 19.5

You may even find it necessary to resize the picture to the final format and add a tiny border.

For example, I have just printed a picture of a Ukrainian church for a competition and in the original picture the cross on the top of the church was close to the margin. OK but close.

If I had just resized the picture to 11x 14 the .25 inch lost at the top under the mat would have caused the cross to crowd the top edge so I resized to 11 x 13.80 and added a .20 inch border at the top. In this case the border was sky color.

You can get in the habit of editing so the composition fits perfectly into a 15.5 x 19.5 rectangle- this will print well at any frame size from 4 x 5 to 16 x 20. However, I resize and sharpen at the target size.

The argument of cropping for the composition is ideally correct but costly if you plan on printing, matting and framing. I view the 4 x5 aspect ratio as ideal for most portraits and view that as just one more goal to shoot for.