Cropping for printing.

[Dylfish]

Hey guys,
ive got a few photos laying around which ive cropped quite substantially (for effect :) ) are there any cropping templates to which i can get the right ratio for printing dimensions?. also when printing what are the minimum dimensions for each print size before the quality goes down. is there a formula or way to work this out?

[kiwi]

Don't you crop to the size of the photo you want to be printed ? ie 4x6 or 8x10 or 5x7 and any combination larger ?

How much you can crop is very dependant on original pixels kept and sharpness

[Dylfish]

yeh using the photshop crop tool right? i do but im just wondering how much you can go before image degradation begins to come noticable.

[ShaneB]

yeh using the photshop crop tool right? i do but im just wondering how much you can go before image degradation begins to come noticable.

It depends on what you're doing. As a rule of thumb, images for viewing on a screen are 72 dpi, but for printing, you wouldn't want less than 240. 300 would be better.

Another thing: you should always edit a copy of your image. That way, you can always go back if soemthing goes wrong.

Regards

[discontinued]

I'm pretty sure these are the aspect ratios for print sizes:

3:2 = 6x4
7:5 = 5x7
4:5 = 8x10
2:3 = 20x30

My camera is set to produce 3:2 ratio so if I'm getting 6x4s or 20x30s done I won't crop. If however, I want a 5x7 or 8x10 then I either use the crop tool with those numbers in inches or I use the ratio numbers instead.

And yes, 300dpi (however some say it doesn't matter as a photos are often only 72dpi straight off the camera)

Hope that helps.

[Dylfish]

yeh i do, i shoot in raw then save to jpeg once. i change the res to 300dpi for printing. im just wondering how tightly you can crop before it become bad quality. my camera shoots @ 3888 x 25** somthing i think and if i crop 1/2 of it away whats the largers good quality print i could get?

[Dylfish]

if i want a photo @ 5x7 but i crop it to the right ratio but keep it as a larger res. it will be reduced wont it when i get it printed

[discontinued]

One way to work out a minimum is pick your resolution (so you've got 300dpi). Then the minimum for a 6x4 would be 6x300 x 4x300 = 1800x1200px. Any less then I think the quality may start to drop.

Or (just realised you wanted 5x7).. 5x300 x 7x300 = 1500x2100.. You could always drop it down to say 250dpi and even 150dpi if you have less pixels to work with.

[Dylfish]

ahhh, man thats so simple, how silly am I !

[Dan AU]

Oh, I wish I saw this post earlier, I printed a couple of my photos today just to see how it would look at 8*10 and it chopped off so much as per the couple screenies shown below.

I was a little disappointed thinking that you just print it at the lab and it would come out on the paper the way it looked on my laptop.

This is how much got cropped, I came home and did an online one, they show you everything previewed before hand.

While they look very nice in print they have been chopped and don't have the effect i was looking for.