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Home: Video University Forums: Digital Photography for Videographers:
Resizing images: What dimensions to make them?

Brackish
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Jun 13, 2007, 1:58 AM

Post #1 of 19 (1290 views)
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Resizing images: What dimensions to make them?	Can't Post

Okay. Out of the camera the images are 3:2. When I go to crop the images
sometimes I want a square (i.e. 1:1) image. Sometimes the crop looks
good 5:4, which would be for 8 x 10 size. Now, my editing program
also has a 4:3 option. Does anyone know what 4:3 is for? Offhand, I
can't think of any prints that are that size.

There is also the freehand sizing, where you make them whatever
dimensions you want. I'm wondering if doing it freehand might
be a bad idea because the client may not be able to get the proper
frame.

So, does anyone have any thoughts about sizing/dimensions that
should be used for wedding pictures? What about square images?
Good idea or bad idea to make them square?

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"We'll always show up at the wedding with a gift bag for the bride. Inside we have these incredible fuzzy slippers in the teal of our branding."

DarrenS
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Jun 13, 2007, 3:05 AM

Post #2 of 19 (1282 views)
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Re: [Brackish] Resizing images: What dimensions to make them? [In reply to]	Can't Post

Okay.

You're now entering the Twilight Zone of digital imaging output. Be prepared for confusion and the odd momentary lapse of reason. Smile

First question that needs to be answered: what is the native resolution of your printer?

Brackish
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Jun 13, 2007, 3:39 AM

Post #3 of 19 (1273 views)
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Re: [DarrenS] Resizing images: What dimensions to make them? [In reply to]	Can't Post

In Reply To

First question that needs to be answered: what is the native resolution of your printer?

Hi, Darren.

I won't be printing the images myself - I'll either be sending the images
out for printing (either loose prints or in an album) or just selling the
images on disc to the client, where they would handle printing themselves.

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"We'll always show up at the wedding with a gift bag for the bride. Inside we have these incredible fuzzy slippers in the teal of our branding."

(This post was edited by Brackish on Jun 13, 2007, 4:44 AM)

RustyB
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Jun 13, 2007, 3:58 AM

Post #4 of 19 (1272 views)
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Re: [Brackish] Resizing images: What dimensions to make them? [In reply to]	Can't Post

In Reply To

...I'll either be sending the images out to for printing ....

With SmugMug as my image host, they let you crop the image AFTER you choose the print size, right from the shopping cart. Very simple. Of course, I might be worried if leaving it up to customers to crop it themselves, so I haven't a clue as to work that out yet. The best solution at this point seems to be taking orders from customers myself, and cropping/printing them myself using a nice printer like Darren has. I don't want to rely on online order-it-yourself print sales...I just don't see that being successful. In the video business, I've seen cheap fuggin' clients enlarging proofs, thumbnails, whatever, just to save $2 and not have to buy the photog's pictures. I had one ask if I could photoshop out the proof markings from a photog's online proof they had printed on their home printer and brought to me. Laugh

faith poison films

Brackish
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Jun 13, 2007, 4:59 AM

Post #5 of 19 (1261 views)
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Re: [RustyB] Resizing images: What dimensions to make them? [In reply to]	Can't Post

In Reply To

The best solution at this point seems to be taking orders from customers myself, and cropping/printing them myself using a nice printer like Darren has. I don't want to rely on online order-it-yourself print sales...I just don't see that being successful.

Printing yourself sounds very expensive for the ink you'd go through.
What if you have 100 - or 400 - prints to make? That's sounds
like a several-day job just sitting around feeding the paper into
the printer and replenishing the ink as it keeps running out.
And most/all of the generic inks aren't any good so you're
buying Epson or Hewlett-Packard ink at $30 to $75 a pop.

As far as order-it-yourself print sales, I think that's what most
all event photogs are doing.

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"We'll always show up at the wedding with a gift bag for the bride. Inside we have these incredible fuzzy slippers in the teal of our branding."

(This post was edited by Brackish on Jun 13, 2007, 5:29 AM)

Postal Boy
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Jun 13, 2007, 9:39 AM

Post #6 of 19 (1249 views)
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Re: [Brackish] Resizing images: What dimensions to make them? [In reply to]	Can't Post

Ok...here we go. If you are sending them out to have them printed, just look at the sizes offered by the printing company. then create a document that is the size of the final print at 300dpi. Copy/paste (drag/drop) the original into that document, then you know exactly what will "show" and what will be cropped. I have found that to fit an image in a 5x7 or 8x10 I have to do some cloning of the edges to extend either the top/bottom or sides to get it to fit properly, or crop it differently than I expected. You shouldn't make a photo that is not a standard size that they can find a frame for, though.

-Postal

Brackish
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Jun 13, 2007, 9:56 AM

Post #7 of 19 (1243 views)
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Re: [Postal Boy] Resizing images: What dimensions to make them? [In reply to]	Can't Post

In Reply To

You shouldn't make a photo that is not a standard size that they can find a frame for, though.

Thanks, Postal.

How do I know what are the standard frame sizes?

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"We'll always show up at the wedding with a gift bag for the bride. Inside we have these incredible fuzzy slippers in the teal of our branding."

Postal Boy
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Jun 13, 2007, 11:18 AM

Post #8 of 19 (1238 views)
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Re: [Brackish] Resizing images: What dimensions to make them? [In reply to]	Can't Post

I think that any size that a pro photo lab uses has frames available for it. I got a 10x20 the other day at a Michael's craft place. I had to take the little "5x7" matting inside of it out, but that is not an issue.

Swing by the local arts/crafts shop and see what they have, or just do one that is listed in the sizes at MPIX (that is who I use for now)

-Postal

DarrenS
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Jun 13, 2007, 4:45 PM

Post #9 of 19 (1218 views)
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Re: [Brackish] Resizing images: What dimensions to make them? [In reply to]	Can't Post

Here's some fairly standard sizes in the US/Canada...

4" x 6"
5" x 7"
8" x 10"
8" x 12"
11" x 14"
11" x 17"
12" x 18"
13" x 19"
16" x 20"
16" x 24"
20" x 24"
20" x 30"

Brackish
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Jun 13, 2007, 5:53 PM

Post #10 of 19 (1210 views)
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Re: [Postal Boy] Resizing images: What dimensions to make them? [In reply to]	Can't Post

How about for album work? For example, can you make an 1" X 8" print if you
want?

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"We'll always show up at the wedding with a gift bag for the bride. Inside we have these incredible fuzzy slippers in the teal of our branding."

Brackish
Veteran

Jun 13, 2007, 5:55 PM

Post #11 of 19 (1209 views)
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Re: [DarrenS] Resizing images: What dimensions to make them? [In reply to]	Can't Post

In Reply To

Here's some fairly standard sizes in the US/Canada...

So, you would suggest not making images in any dimensions that they can't get a frame for?

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"We'll always show up at the wedding with a gift bag for the bride. Inside we have these incredible fuzzy slippers in the teal of our branding."

DarrenS
Veteran

Jun 13, 2007, 6:04 PM

Post #12 of 19 (1206 views)
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Re: [Brackish] Resizing images: What dimensions to make them? [In reply to]	Can't Post

That's right. Not unless they are told (or inquire) about custom framing and the associated costs. A few well-off people might be willing to pay heavy for custom framing if they want a certain picture bad enough. It's expensive though, at least it is compared to the garbage made in China you procure at the big box stores.

Keep in mind mass produced frames (more specifically, mattes) lop-off 1/4" of your composure on each side (!). Sometimes even more with the really cheap crap. For example a 8x10 matte will only let you see a 7 1/2" x 9 1/2" image. Custom-made mattes are usually only 1/8"...far more desireable (and costly).

Brackish
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Jun 13, 2007, 7:41 PM

Post #13 of 19 (1194 views)
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Re: [DarrenS] Resizing images: What dimensions to make them? [In reply to]	Can't Post

You know what frames are not that common are
frames for square pics.

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"We'll always show up at the wedding with a gift bag for the bride. Inside we have these incredible fuzzy slippers in the teal of our branding."

DarrenS
Veteran

Jun 14, 2007, 12:04 AM

Post #14 of 19 (1186 views)
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Re: [Brackish] Resizing images: What dimensions to make them? [In reply to]	Can't Post

I'm just finishing up a run of 420 4x6 full-bleed glossy prints tonight and haven't noticed the ink levels budge a bit. Granted, they're 80ml cartridges at sixty bucks a pop. Can't say enough good things about the 3800, though. An awesome workhorse of a printer and the output is state-of-the-art. Epson hit a grand slam with it.

Now if only Bridge would let us print like Lightroom. In fact the only use I have for Lightroom is it's cool batch printing feature. Otherwise it's useless if you have CS3.

Shadow
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Jun 14, 2007, 12:27 AM

Post #15 of 19 (1175 views)
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Re: [Brackish] Resizing images: What dimensions to make them? [In reply to]	Can't Post

I'm too lazy to read the whole thread, so I apologize if this was already stated. Why don't you leave the cropping unless it is really bad. If you crop to 8x10 size, then they want a different size, you'll lose more in the next crop.

It's tempting to crop each photo, but enless it is very noticable, I don't crop too much until I know what I'm printing for.

__________________________

DarrenS
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Jun 14, 2007, 12:33 AM

Post #16 of 19 (1174 views)
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Re: [Brackish] Resizing images: What dimensions to make them? [In reply to]	Can't Post

As was said already, 300ppi is basically the standard labs as for. However if you know what your printer's (or their's) exact native resolution is you can maximise output quality by preparing your images accordingly. For example my Epson 3800 has a 360ppi native if 'super-fine' is turned off, so I prepare my images at 360ppi in photoshop so the epson driver doesn't interpolate the file (which is indeed will if it's not exactly 360 before sending to printer). I'd rather do resizing inside photoshop than let a driver do the thinking.

For cropping to various aspect ratios/print sizes, your best bet is to just use the crop tool in photoshop. Simply enter the length and width in inches (at the top of the screen) and leave the resolution box empty to avoid resampling. Be aware that if you enter a resolution photoshop will resample the image. I like to do that in a seperate step using the proper sampling algorithm based on each image, using the Image Size tools (i.e. nearest neighbor totally sucks and I believe that's the algo photoshop uses if you enter a resolution number in the crop tool...bicubic smoother is what I use if there's a lot of noise in the image as it doesn't magnify noise, for example. Every image needs unique treatment).

DarrenS
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Jun 14, 2007, 12:36 AM

Post #17 of 19 (1171 views)
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Re: [Shadow] Resizing images: What dimensions to make them? [In reply to]	Can't Post

If you crop to 8x10 size, then they want a different size, you'll lose more in the next crop.

Always keep an unsharpened, 1st-generation original file archived. All alterations should happen on that original, so what you're describign here doesn't happen (which it will indeed if one doesn't keep an original from which to work each time).

Shadow
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Jun 14, 2007, 12:46 AM

Post #18 of 19 (1164 views)
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Re: [DarrenS] Resizing images: What dimensions to make them? [In reply to]	Can't Post

Hi Darren

I always keep an uncropped photo - but why does it need to be unsharpened?

Thanks
H

__________________________

DarrenS
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Jun 14, 2007, 1:08 AM

Post #19 of 19 (1161 views)
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Re: [Shadow] Resizing images: What dimensions to make them? [In reply to]	Can't Post

Unsharpened images resize better than sharpened ones, especially going up. I even have in-camera sharpening turned off completely.