Crop Guide

I don’t know about you, but as soon as my gallery is delivered I rush to order the pictures! I love seeing the digitals and I cannot wait to get the prints in my hands.

Often in the flurry of checking out, certain parts are overlooked. One of the biggest mistakes we see happening is clients not adjusting the cropping. While we make sure to check every image before sending it to the lab (so you don’t get sent an image missing half of your kid) it is always great for you to adjust your image just how you like.

Want to know how?

Once you are in your gallery and selecting a print option

…STOP…

Click ‘EDIT CROP’ under the image.

A new page will open and there you can easily see the red border. Everything outside of the red border will not be printed.

Certain size prints cause more of a crop than others. Why is this?

ASPECT RATIO

Simply put, aspect ratio is the measurement of a photo’s width to height. To get technical, we use fancy cameras that utilize a 3:2 aspect ratio. This matches the aspect ratio of a standard 4x6 inch print.

The problem arises with large prints: 5x7”, 8x10”, 11x14”.

When you preview your Modern School Portraits shown in our gallery, ALL IMAGES are shown with the original, full-frame 3:2 aspect ratio.

For instance:

Every 8x10” print that you order will get cropped.

When we deliver an 8x10” print, you lose a full 2 inches from the original image.

What to do if you absolutely adore every single megapixel from the image and you don’t want anything cropped? You’ll need to order either a 4x6” or 8x12” print to preserve the entire frame and reduce the risk of cropping.

HOT TIP!

If you really love the full image but want to keep your 8x10” frame, get a mat! By putting a mat in the frame you can easily have your full image and an 8x10” frame. It is a win-win.

Here is a visual guide…

The above example shows how different print sizes would crop out important parts of the photo. You can see that printing an 8x10” of the photo (5:4 ratio) would cut off the girl’s shows and bow (PINK), whereas a 5x7” print would cut off the tip of her shoes and leave blank space at the top of the photo (YELLOW). You can also see that any print size that has the same aspect ratio as your camera (2x3) will keep the photo entirely intact; nothing will be cut off due to cropping- in this case, a 4x6” (BLUE).

In the end just make sure to double check the cropping regardless of size. And don’t worry we will double check it before sending it to the lab!

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