Cropping Photographs - Standard Size???

[ccrnkovic]

Hi everyone
Just wondering if there is a standard size to save and crop photographs when finished editing or is it restrospective to the photograph. Some websites seem to have all the same sized photographs, help needed, thanks

[ricktas]

what is your camera? as they have a 'native' proportion due to the sensor shape . Most are 3:2, thus straight from the camera you can produce the common 6:4 print or a 9:6 or a 12:8 print. That is the key, many pro photographers will crop their photos to fit the standard print sizes.

[OzzieTraveller]

G'day mate

Rick's -almost- right above .... dSLR cameras will give you a 3:2 format, most non dSLR cameras will give you a 4:3 [computer screen] format as well as the 3:2 / 4"x6" format

The other side of the story that may be on your mind [using my crystal ball here] is that after cropping an image, obviously the pixels you end up with become 'odd' sizes. It is then possible in your photo editing software to resize the image to a "standard" size

For example ... you may have a 10mpx camera of 3650 x 2740 pixels, but you crop the image to say, 3000 x 2500 (now equals 7.5mpx). You can use PS or PSE to resize the image size back to your original pixels ... thus your images are all now the same size again

Hope this helps a bit
Regards, Phil

[Zac]

I don't crop until I know where the image will be used, its generally the very last thing I do after all other editing as then if I need a diefferent format later I don't have to re-edit the image.

There is no standard as such, some common print sizes like 6x8 and 8x10 are a fair way from 3:2. If you are not sure take the image with a little extra space on each side, then you should be able to crop appropriately later.

[ccrnkovic]

Thanks, I have a Canon 450D, ta

[kaiser]

G'day mate

Rick's -almost- right above .... dSLR cameras will give you a 3:2 format, most non dSLR cameras will give you a 4:3 [computer screen] format as well as the 3:2 / 4"x6" format

The other side of the story that may be on your mind [using my crystal ball here] is that after cropping an image, obviously the pixels you end up with become 'odd' sizes. It is then possible in your photo editing software to resize the image to a "standard" size

For example ... you may have a 10mpx camera of 3650 x 2740 pixels, but you crop the image to say, 3000 x 2500 (now equals 7.5mpx). You can use PS or PSE to resize the image size back to your original pixels ... thus your images are all now the same size again

Hope this helps a bit
Regards, Phil

Upscaling an image like this will invariably degrade the image quality to some extent, as Photoshop will be inventing extra pixels that weren't there before. Maybe not much but a bit nonetheless. Sometimes you have no choice if you really need to print larger than the native resolution - but I try to avoid it where possible and just keep the image at its native resolution all the way through the editing workflow - then crop as necessary when it comes time to output for print.

Using the Crop Tool preset you can crop to a defined size (8x10" 300dpi...etc etc)