Photo sizes in Europe-- how do they correspond w/ U.S. standards?

WinsomeWorks · April 29, 2010

I just put up a gallery for some Swiss friends who visited, and did some cropping here & there. While doing it, I was wondering how the standard sizes there might correspond to what we have here. Most of my crops are 4x6", 4x5" or 5x7". If they want to copy my photos and get them printed in Switzerland, will these sizes most likely have a metric equivalent, or are standard sizes different? I'm hoping that since cameras put out something very close to 4x5" or somewhat close to 4x6", the standards are pretty close, right?

Andy · April 29, 2010

Why crop to specific sizes? That forces a size. Leave the photo in the native aspect ratio, and then they can have more flexibility to get the size they want. Typically this means when shooting, you must allow room for cropping.

Many European print labs have the same sizes we have here in the US.

WinsomeWorks · April 29, 2010

Andy wrote:

Why crop to specific sizes? That forces a size. Leave the photo in the native aspect ratio, and then they can have more flexibility to get the size they want. Typically this means when shooting, you must allow room for cropping.

Many European print labs have the same sizes we have here in the US.

Well, yeah-- I'm quite aware of why you wanna avoid cropping whenever possible! But there are times I just can't avoid it.... and I can think of many reasons. In this instance, folks are unlikely to be making large prints, so cropping shouldn't be problematic. Also, I always keep multiple copies of originals un-cropped.

In this situation, I was shooting in crowds & over heads in concerts & etc, & shooting fast, not being able to compose shots well. And those galleries would be completely ugly if I'd left them as-is, with partial heads in lots of them, etc. Also, for family/friend snaps, people may want to email them, make a slide-show, etc. & not have to crop all the ugly stuff off! And they do not like it when someone's looking really bad in a certain shot-- better to crop it off if there are others for whom it was a great shot. So-- there's a couple reasons for you. But yes, you just do what you gotta do. And this is why I'm much happier taking photos of plants & stuff that allows me to take my good old time composing!

jfriend · April 29, 2010

WinsomeWorks wrote:

Well, yeah-- I'm quite aware of why you wanna avoid cropping whenever possible! But there are times I just can't avoid it.... and I can think of many reasons. In this instance, folks are unlikely to be making large prints, so cropping shouldn't be problematic. Also, I always keep multiple copies of originals un-cropped.

In this situation, I was shooting in crowds & over heads in concerts & etc, & shooting fast, not being able to compose shots well. And those galleries would be completely ugly if I'd left them as-is, with partial heads in lots of them, etc. Also, for family/friend snaps, people may want to email them, make a slide-show, etc. & not have to crop all the ugly stuff off! And they do not like it when someone's looking really bad in a certain shot-- better to crop it off if there are others for whom it was a great shot. So-- there's a couple reasons for you. But yes, you just do what you gotta do. And this is why I'm much happier taking photos of plants & stuff that allows me to take my good old time composing!

It's perfectly fine to crop (I do it all the time to correct the framing of the photo), but when you do crop, keep the image at it's original aspect ratio 3:2 and don't crop too tightly so that there's some flexibility for different print sizes. The original 3:2 aspect ratio is right in the middle of all the various print sizes so it's a convenient ratio to leave it in.

WinsomeWorks · May 3, 2010

jfriend wrote: »

It's perfectly fine to crop (I do it all the time to correct the framing of the photo), but when you do crop, keep the image at it's original aspect ratio 3:2 and don't crop too tightly so that there's some flexibility for different print sizes. The original 3:2 aspect ratio is right in the middle of all the various print sizes so it's a convenient ratio to leave it in.

95% of the time, I do that (keep in original aspect), however, it just doesn't always work. There are photos I'll leave in a gallery even if in an odd size, because it might be one I'm figuring people wanna see but are unlikely to buy/ print commercially. Also, I've used 4 different digital cameras, 3 of which were 4:3 and 2 that were 3:2, so I can't completely get away from having some mixed ratios depending on the gallery. It's a pain, but don't know what else to do. I'm also working at scanning old slides, so those come out 3:2 as well. I just have to notate it on the galleries or even in the caption. Problem is, captions aren't obvious to some buyers when ordering, which I feel is a pain for them.

I wish I sold enough stuff to make it a really big problem :cry but so far, it's not! It's especially when I have a subject gallery such as "Animals" that I get a large mix. And now on Smart Galleries, I've nearly given up-- I just don't know where to start with the problems of trying to help people understand what they're able to buy in one of those galleries. I never really got answers here that would help me tidy it up or make it comprehensible to someone trying to buy.

toferbaseball · November 9, 2010

I found this thread after a visit to Ikea and their "funky metric" frame sizing on larger frames. Still can't seem to find a match size without a large crop against:

PProduct dimensions
Width: 28 ¼ " Height: 40 ¼ "
Picture, width: 27 ½ " Picture, height: 39 ¼ "
Picture (W=width): 19 ¼ " Picture (H=height): 27 ¼ "

Width: 72 cm Height: 102 cm
Picture, width: 70 cm Picture, height: 100 cm
Picture (W=width): 49 cm Picture (H=height): 69 cm

or

Product dimensions
Width: 20 ½ " Height: 28 ¼ "
Picture, width: 19 ¾ " Picture, height: 27 ½ "
Picture (W=width): 15 ¼ " Picture (H=height): 19 ¼ "

Width: 52 cm Height: 72 cm
Picture, width: 50 cm Picture, height: 70 cm
Picture (W=width): 39 cm Picture (H=height): 49 cm

Photo sizes in Europe-- how do they correspond w/ U.S. standards?

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