Should I abandon 5x7 and 8x10 prints?

MileHighAko · January 24, 2011

This last year I sold quite a few pints at 5x7 and 8x10 size, and in a few cases the buyer was dissatisfied because the crop they were forced to make changed the photo too much. I generally try to frame pretty tight in the camera.

So I'm wondering, what is the best practice? Frame lose and crop in post to satisfy a 5x7/8x10 print, or simply abandon 5x7/8x10 all together and not offer them, offering 4x6/8x12 instead? What are others doing?

MDalby · January 24, 2011

I always go 8x10.

beetle8 · January 24, 2011

The problem is nobody is making a bold move to change this.
I have the same issue as you, I shoot tight more often then not. As a matter of fact I just recently had a dissastified customer who played with the "no-Crop" option or "fit" option as its called at Zenfolio. When her prints arrived with white borders she emailed pissed saying "the prints are horribly un-acceptable" "there are white bars on the sides of the pictures""they can not be displayed like this".

While percentage wise there are very few cameras producing anything in the 8X10 or 5X7 formats, frame companies are still mass producing these as ratios. And people have had no reason to question there knee jerk reaction to those ratios. "Oh that's a great picture I should get an 8X10 of that" rather than 8X12. Currently if someone orders an 8X12 chances are they are looking at having to custom frame the print rather than grabbing something standard at Walmart.

While I like your spirit of abandoning those ratios I think it could affect sales.

Shooting wider is an option, unfortunately it affects the picture negatively in most regards.

So I haven't answered your question, right now I am doing nothing proactively to address this, but it has been a concern of mine for some time. For a while I was solving the issue behind the scenes with content aware scale, that's a time consuming process that got old quick, but I still do it when the situation call for it.

JimKarczewski · January 24, 2011

What Keith said. I HATE cropping, but go anywhere other than a custom framer (RETAIL LOCATION) and you find 8x10 & 5x7 frames, NOT 8x12 frames. Online you can find tons of pre-made 8x12 frames, but how many people buy frames online?? I'm trying to push digital downloads more than prints now anyway. Unfortunately SM doesn't allow arranging the tabs in the product screen to put "downloads" in front of Prints.

JBHotShots · January 24, 2011

I offer the 8x10 and 8x12 at the same price; seemed to have worked last year.

beetle8 · January 24, 2011

JimKarczewski wrote: »

*snip* I'm trying to push digital downloads more than prints now anyway. Unfortunately SM doesn't allow arranging the tabs in the product screen to put "downloads" in front of Prints.

Another one on top of the list of reasons why I left SM for Zenfolio after 5 years with SM. Much more of a sales friendly UI for the customers, and more options and tools for the pro. I can set up "Featured Products" that show up right next to the preview, rather than hoping the customers find the apropriate tab. This will be the way I move into trying to encourage the 2x3 format.

I have also tried to offer more in the way of digital DL's another way ZF tops SM. I can make custom sizes and licenses of digital DL's. I have one selling really well right now that I call the Facebook profile DL which is 300x450px

MJRPHOTO · January 25, 2011

I do not do 8x10. I only do 8x12, 12x18, 20x30.
I will do 5x7 but will let the client know if it will be a problem.

jepley929 · January 31, 2011

I've seen lots of SM pros place all their photos on a "mat" in Photoshop. They don't crop to a specific aspect ratio. They create a 16x20 mat for portraits or 20x16 mat for landscapes (white or black). They will then drag an image onto that mat and free transform the image so it's center on the mat. They save it as a jpeg and upload to Smugmug. Then a customer can buy any size print and crop out the mat if they wish and will not need to crop any part of the image. That could possibly be a solution for those who like to shoot really tight. You can see examples of how the images look on mats here. www.bcphoto.biz

I tried that solution and it did work, however it was adding a lot of time to my work flow so I abandoned it. I now set my galleries to delay proof and check my customers cropping. If one of my customers wants an image that requires cropping and don't want to lose any part of the image, I will then place that one photo on a mat and then they can crop out the whole mat. Once I do that, 99% of the customers are satisfied.

Just an idea.

drode · February 2, 2011

I generally dislike the 2x3 DSLR/35mm aspect ratio. I much prefer 4x5 for (non-sports) shots, so when I'm shooting I typically frame expecting to crop the top and/or bottom. Sports like basketball, however really benefit from the taller aspect ratio, so I'm stuck with the same quandary. Do I shoot looser expecting to crop or shoot tigher and expect to lose some of the image for 8x10 or 5x7 prints.

I don't really have an answer, just commiserating.

ILikeCheese · February 2, 2011

Less cropping is always better. You keep your pixels and the integrity of your original image. Just buy a matte to fit your frame and cut it to fit your image.

JSPhotography · February 3, 2011

The customer is allways right and why would you not want to sell them what they are asking for??? It makes sense that they want a ratio that matches readly avialble frames. I have not had this problem and I'm guessimg it is becouse I process after they place their order. Put in a 2 day delay, when they order make your adjustments and crop to the size they want. Everybody is happy.

beetle8 · February 3, 2011

JSPhotography wrote: »

The customer is allways right and why would you not want to sell them what they are asking for??? It makes sense that they want a ratio that matches readly avialble frames. I have not had this problem and I'm guessimg it is becouse I process after they place their order. Put in a 2 day delay, when they order make your adjustments and crop to the size they want. Everybody is happy.

Should I abandon 5x7 and 8x10 prints?

Comments