Ideal crop prior to uploading?

James Broome · August 3, 2005

I prefer to crop, color correct, sharpen, etc. in Photoshop before I upload my pics. When offering images for sale (and having lots of size options), what is generally considered the 'cover all your bases' dimension? Obviously, I don't want to drop images square since printing them correctly on 5x7 or 16x20 would be impossible - so what size would work best?

James Broome · August 3, 2005

Follow up:

When printing, how does smugmug crop for print size? Will it center the image left to right / top to bottom, then trim the edges? Will it crop just the right and bottom?

jfriend · August 3, 2005

Why a 3:2 ratio crop is the way to go

TPJ wrote:

I prefer to crop, color correct, sharpen, etc. in Photoshop before I upload my pics. When offering images for sale (and having lots of size options), what is generally considered the 'cover all your bases' dimension? Obviously, I don't want to drop images square since printing them correctly on 5x7 or 16x20 would be impossible - so what size would work best?

I've analyzed this before myself. I concluded that unless I'm optimizing an image for one particular print size, the 2:3 crop ratio is the best overall ratio to prepare an image with before posting. Here are the popular print sizes and how their aspect ratio compares to the 2:3 ratio of a typical DSLR.

Print Size Ratio

4x6 ....... 2:3.00
5x7 ....... 2:2.67
8x10 ...... 2:2.50
11x14 .... 2:2.55
16x20 .... 2:2.50 (same as 8x10)
20x30 .... 2:3.00 (same as 4x6)

So, what this means is that all of these sizes either fit perfectly with a 2:3 original (as in the case of the 4x6 and the 20x30) or the long side of the image will have to be cropped a bit. This means that you can "plan" for the cropping fairly easily by just making sure that you leave a little extra room on the long side of your image so that it can be cropped to fit the worst case sizes. Those worst case sizes are 8x10 and 16x20 which will need to crop 20% of the long side.

For awhile, I considered cropping most images to a 4:3 ratio instead of a 3:2 ratio. I originally thought that 4:3 might be better because that ratio is more in the center of the print sizes, some sizes crop a little from the long side and some sizes crop a little from the short side. At first, it seemed like it would be better to be in the middle of the range with a balance. But, I found that situation impossible to plan for in my composition of post processing cropping. To do this, you have to leave extra image on all sides and that just seemed to be completely sub-optimal. Also, NONE of the print sizes match a 4:3 ratio exactly. With the 3:2 ratio, I can plan my composition and post processing to always leave a little extra image on the long side and some print sizes match this ratio exactly. It just seems a whole lot simpler to work with 3:2. And, it also has the nice benefit that my camera produces native 3:2 and my viewfinder is 3:2 so it all works out pretty well.

I personally would like smugmug to allow pro accounts to "preset crops" on each image for prints we have for sale so we can guarentee that each size print gets the best crop for each image and the customer doesn't have to figure it out. That's a lot of work to prepare, but if you are selling something really important like wedding photos, it's absolutely important to get this right.

--John

jfriend · August 3, 2005

Centered on the crop dimension

TPJ wrote:

Follow up:

When printing, how does smugmug crop for print size? Will it center the image left to right / top to bottom, then trim the edges? Will it crop just the right and bottom?

They ask the user to position the crop. It defaults to centering the crop on the dimension that has to be trimmed (which is the only intelligent default), shows the user a small preview of the crop and then lets the user adjust it if they want.

You can see it yourself by just putting some images in your cart and playing with them. You don't have to actually complete the purchase transaction to see this.

--John

James Broome · August 3, 2005

Thanks for the info, John. Looks like you might've missed my point in the follow up as you pretty much answered me in your initial post (they drop the long sides).

Thanks!

jfriend · August 3, 2005

Glad to help

TPJ wrote:

Thanks for the info, John. Looks like you might've missed my point in the follow up as you pretty much answered me in your initial post (they drop the long sides).

The default (if the user does nothing) is to evently clip the side that is too long. That can be either the long side of the image or the short side of the image depending upon the original aspect ratio and the print size aspect ratio. As I said in my earlier email, one of the advantages of posting the 3:2 aspect ratio, is this will always be the long side of the image that is clipped if you start with that aspect ratio. If, however, you start with the 4:3 aspect ratio, sometimes it will be the long side that is clipped and sometimes it will be the short side.

The user has two additional choices instead of taking the default cropping:
1) They can manually position the crop to specify a crop different from centered on the dimension that is too long. For example, they could take it all off the top or all off the bottom, instead of evenly off the top and bottom.

2) They can specify "no crop". In this case, the image will be shrunk so that the side that didn't fit will now fit and there will extra white space on the print along the other edge.

--John

James Broome · August 3, 2005

jfriend wrote:

2) They can specify "no crop". In this case, the image will be shrunk so that the side that didn't fit will now fit and there will extra white space on the print along the other edge.

ACK! Are you serious?

jfriend · August 3, 2005

No crop is useful sometimes

TPJ wrote:

ACK! Are you serious?

If you have an image that can't be cropped in any dimension without losing something important, yet you want an image around a size that would require cropping on some dimension, then you may decide that you'll NOT crop it and deal with the resulting non-standard image size. You'd either have to buy/make a custom-sized frame/matt or use it in a non-framed way. In the cases I've seen, this is most likely to happen with something like 8x10 which is the farthest from 3:2 and requires cropping 20% of the long dimension. If the image just won't work after losing 20% from the long dimension, yet you want a print around the size of 8x10, then you can set it to "no crop" and you will get a 6.66x10 print with no cropping.

colourbox · August 3, 2005

TPJ wrote:

ACK! Are you serious?

Well, what else is there to do when a customer requests a specific paper size and no trimming, but the photo and paper are mismatched? Mathematically, the only way to meet those specific requirements, without squeezing/stretching the image, is to fit the long side of the photo to the edge and leave white space on the short side.

The problem could also be solved by selecting one of the other odd paper sizes (for example, the D digital, square, or panorama sizes, when available) it might fit better with less or no cropping.

I now have a crop tool preset in Photoshop that's set to 3:2 so that this is not a chore. There is also a 3:2 crop option in Adobe Camera Raw.

James Broome · August 3, 2005

colourbox wrote:

Well, what else is there to do when a customer requests a specific paper size and no trimming, but the photo and paper are mismatched? Mathematically, the only way to meet those specific requirements, without squeezing/stretching the image, is to fit the long side of the photo to the edge and leave white space on the short side.

True enough. No way around it, really.

Thanks folks!

Ideal crop prior to uploading?

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