CROPPING for customers BUYING prints.

PhotoTraction

Being new to printing services and to Smugmug I did'nt know that my customers would be asked to CROP the photo they wish to purchase.
Was this a overwhelming surprise.
Some of my photos in the 8x10 size get cut too much when cropping.
I have spent days working on and uploading now to find this out.
I have customers wanting and waiting for my prints to become availible.
Any suggestions or ideas besides digging a hole and crawling in it ???

Desperate and time is ticking away.

JimM

I am not sure exactly what you are talking about. Your customers do not have to crop the image, but are able to. For most images shot to be printed as an 8x10 a crop must happen. Without the option of moving the crop, part of the image would be lost and you or your customer would not be able to choose which part. Does this make sense?

StevenV

It's all about aspect ratio - the ratio of a photo's width to it's height.

If you, in Photoshop or whatever, crop your images to 8x10 but they want to purchase a 5x7 piece of paper with your picture on it, something's not going to fit quite right.


It's just like a "widescreen" movie trying to fit on your TV - they're just different.

You can buy a "widescreen" or "letterbox" version - the full movie as the director created it, with black bars on the top & bottom.

Or you buy a Pan-and-Scan (often badly-labeled as "full screen") DVD - where the image fills your TV's screen but some of it's cut off.


Purchasers of your print can either crop or not.

If they choose not to crop, they'll get the full image as you created it, with white bars on the top & bottom. "Letterbox," if you will.

If they choose to crop, they won't get your whole picture. The paper will be full of image, but some of it will be cut off.


If you've sized all your images to be 8x10 and don't want them to crop... maybe you want to only allow them to buy 8x10s.

Andy

PhotoTraction wrote:

Being new to printing services and to Smugmug I did'nt know that my customers would be asked to CROP the photo they wish to purchase.
Was this a overwhelming surprise.
Some of my photos in the 8x10 size get cut too much when cropping.
I have spent days working on and uploading now to find this out.
I have customers wanting and waiting for my prints to become availible.
Any suggestions or ideas besides digging a hole and crawling in it ???

Desperate and time is ticking away.

Hi PhotoTraction, welcome to SmugMug and Dgrin. I'm your House Pro, and I'm here to help.

Your customers aren't "asked" to crop. But cropping is an option. Read up on my Pro Tips thread, in the MYOB forum here. And you'll see some creative ways our pros deal with this feature. I think you'll find that it's a good one to have.

http://www.thomasmanchester.com/Order.htm

I'm here to help you with any specific questions you might have.

StevenV

A picture is worth...

aspectRatio.jpg

Matthew Saville

The trick is to only offer the prints in the same aspect ratio as the image you've uploaded, and then most customers don't even touch the crop option.

For example I routinely disable 8x10" prints and enable 8x12" prints, simply because I usually maintain the 2:3 aspect ratio of my SLR. Espeically for my fine art prints, where the full view is very necessary. I allow ONLY the printing of 8x12", 10x15", 12x18", 16x24", 20x30", and 24x36" prints. I disable the 20x30" and 24x36" prints if I think the image file is not up to the task of such a big print, too.

I wish I could force "no crop" for my fine art prints in my nature portfolio, but this is something Smugmug has insisted is not necessary ever since I suggested it forever ago... I've simply put a statement in my "printing guidelines" page that says I cannot guarantee the quality of a heavily cropped photo. Here are two screenshots I used to describe what is okay and what constitutes heavy cropping:






-Matt-

PhotoTraction

THANKS GUYs

Matthew Saville wrote:

The trick is to only offer the prints in the same aspect ratio as the image you've uploaded, and then most customers don't even touch the crop option.

For example I routinely disable 8x10" prints and enable 8x12" prints, simply because I usually maintain the 2:3 aspect ratio of my SLR. Espeically for my fine art prints, where the full view is very necessary. I allow ONLY the printing of 8x12", 10x15", 12x18", 16x24", 20x30", and 24x36" prints. I disable the 20x30" and 24x36" prints if I think the image file is not up to the task of such a big print, too.

I wish I could force "no crop" for my fine art prints in my nature portfolio, but this is something Smugmug has insisted is not necessary ever since I suggested it forever ago... I've simply put a statement in my "printing guidelines" page that says I cannot guarantee the quality of a heavily cropped photo. Here are two screenshots I used to describe what is okay and what constitutes heavy cropping:






http://www.phototraction.com/

Thanks for all the info. I have thrown my shovel down for now.
I'm going to get my aspect ratio like I want it before uploading.
I was trying to wade into this slowly but found myself in over my head.
Thanks for throwing me a line.
Hope I can return the favor some day.