Selling Images online

[rjackjames]

I have a quick question on resizing images for sale Do you crop them? when I edit i crop them 12 x 18in in CS5. I have few images I want to sell online. I am just curious on how this works and any information would be great on this process/tip/suggestions.

 

[71M]

I haven't sold any prints, but I do get 10x8" made, and yes, I crop because my camera images are usually 3:2 or 4:3. An 12x18" image is 2:3 so you can choose to crop or not, depending on how much of the image out of the camera you wish to show.

 

[pixmedic]

crop the image to whatever format you want to sell it at.
if you want to sell an 8x10 print, crop to 8x10.
if you have a client that looks at a digital image, crop it to whatever print size they want.
as long as you keep the original file untouched, (or the final edited version) you can do as many prints in as many different sizes as you want.

 

[Gavjenks]

Well for one thing, there's no such thing as 12x18 inches on the internet. All that matters is pixels.
I assume what you meant was 12x18 inches at the default (i think) photoshop setting of 72 pixels/inch? That would be 864x1296 pixels, which I think is pretty reasonable for online posting. That's about what I use (usually 800x1200 for native camera aspect ratio)

You certainly don't want to go above the size of an an decent normal monitor, which is something like 1920x1080, and often smaller. Because people are going to want to view your whole photo at once, not by scrolling, and the maximum resolution they can do that at is their monitor. So anything higher resolution than the monitors is wasteful of space AND unnecessarily opening yourself up to more profitable image piracy.

That's big enough to see the image. If they want bigger, they can pay for it, or contact you, IMO. There's not really any reason why the public needs larger as a whole, all it does it let them print your stuff from online for free in larger print sizes with decent quality, and doesn't help advertise your skills.

ALSO, you don't want the internet browser to resize your photos for you, because they can look weird and have rounding errors. So making them smaller than a monitor is good for that reason too.

So 1200x800 for portrait orientation is already a bit too much, but it's close enough not to really bother my brain with worrying about it. Although maybe I should, due to the rounding error/resizing issue.

 

[rjackjames]

if you visit my website you can see i have few images on there that for sale rjjphotography.zenfolio.com
I have 8x10, 8x12 12x18, 20x24 24x36 available for sale
the 8x10 has a border around it also the 20x 24 why is that?

 

[pixmedic]

if you visit my website you can see i have few images on there that for sale rjjphotography.zenfolio.com
I have 8x10, 8x12 12x18, 20x24 24x36 available for sale
the 8x10 has a border around it also the 20x 24 why is that?

are you asking about actual crop size?
or are you asking about pixel size for display online?
Gav has the pixel end covered.
other than that, if you are talking about final crop size, you can make the pictures whatever size you want to sell them as, OR, let the client decide what they want the size to be, then you crop it and have it printed, or digitally delivered.

 

[KmH]

the 8x10 has a border around it also the 20x 24 why is that?

Because of the aspect ratio.

8x10 has a 5:4 aspect ratio. 20x24 has a 6:5 aspect ratio
4x6, 8x12, 10x15, 12x18, 16x24, 20x30, 24x36 all have a 3:2 aspect ratio.

DSLR image sensors based on the shape of a 35 mm film frame (135 format film) all have a 3:2 aspect ratio.
Nikon, Canon, and Pentax DSLRs have 3:2 aspect ratio image sensors.