Print sizes

[mark]

Hi everyone

i'm experiencing some problems when i want to print pictures at certain sizes,
Here goes: i go to a shoot and take the pictures i go home and open in PS then i set the crop factor to say 5"x7" then i crop it and it limits me to those dimentions but it's making me crop out parts of the picture i want to keep in, i find the only way around this is to use free crop which allows me to keep in everything that i want to see, however this presents me problems when it comes to printing the photo. I took some pictures the other day of 4 children lying on the floor so i wanted to crop out all the space above them, when i tried to do this i ended up cutting one of the 4 children out of the scene, it look as if the only way i could acheive what i wanted was to go panoramic with the picture but i have no idea how to do this either. Could someone help with this problem please!

Thanks

Mark

[BarryM]

Its all to do with ratio mate, a 10x8 crop isnt the same as an 8x6 crop. Depending on your camera, but im guessing a perfect crop of the incoming image will be a 6x4, that will crop the whole image for you.

Dont quote me but a 6x4 is a ratio of 3:2 whereas a 8x6 is a crop ratio of 4:3

so you either have to lose a bit or if ur shooting on white u can increase the white space so its not noticable.

Good suggestion is to allow plenty of room to crop when taking the actual image, i still screw it up now and agian but use tricks ive learned to increase areas around and about to allow for this.

[mark]

Barry thanks for taking the time to answer, yes i know that i need to leave more room around the subjects but i suppose your trying to compose the final image there and then, i shall consider that the next time i shoot, thanks again for the advice it's appreciated

Mark

[Keltic Ice Man]

I tend to just offer print sizes that are in the 3:2 ratio. This seems to be ok for most of my customers.

What have others done?

[lostmysnorkel]

yup, other than 7x5, I only offer prints in the 3:2 ratio, native to the 35mm format.

There are, as Barry says, some little PS tricks to widen a pic to fit the crop, but other than that, leave enough space at time of shooting.

[Stemmy]

With the quality of digital cameras nowadays I always say - compose the shot - then take one step back. It sooo much easier cropping later if you have left enough space around the image.

The worst crop is 5" by 4" when the parent want an album.

Just another lesson learnt - that what its all bout.