Optimum image size for flexible cropping

ES
Posted By
Eddie_Sung
Jul 30, 2008
Views
184
Replies
1
Status
Closed
Hi,

My clinets often order from the same photo 4X6, 5X7, 8.5 X 11 and even 11 X 14’s. While I am happy with these requests, I wonder how you professionals (I am just an old retired widower using CS3 and LR to kill time) size an image during shooting so it will give you that flexibility to crop to different sizes.

I shoot with a Nikon D300, mostly head and shoulder of friends and their friends. I started charging them when I realize how expensive it is to pay for ink and paper for my R1900 printer let alone the time it takes to go through Scott Kellby’s touch up procedure.

Any advise will be most appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Eddie
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Neil_Keller
Jul 30, 2008
Eddie,

There is no ideal format for all of those sizes as they do not have the same horizontal to vertical size ratios.

The easy answer is not to crop very tightly in the camera, so that you have a little extra background to accommodate the various crops you use. If you wish, you can draw some pen-and-ink frames on acetate or mylar to match the proportions of your prints, and place that over the LCD screen on your D300. There may even be commercial products like this.

And, yes, you should be charging friends and family at least the costs of materials if you’re doing more than a couple of prints.

And if you’re doing the photography and printing professionally (meaning: you get paid for the session), you should check on the going rate in your neighborhood and charge accordingly, even if you discount it for friends and family. Otherwise they will take advantage of you and your good nature. Why work for free?

Neil

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