Sometimes I think there is nothing more frustrating in photography than cropping an image. Nine times out of 10 I crop images as 4x6s because that's the size most people are familiar with. And of course there are other common sizes like the 5x7 and 8x10. But I really think the 8x10 should be called the wicked stepsister of the 4x6? Why? Because in order to take the 4x6 and enlarge it to an 8x10, two inches have to be cropped from the picture? Say what? In order to make a picture larger, you have to cut some off? That doesn't make sense.
It all has to do with aspect ratio, which is the proportion of of an image's heigh to its width. The aspect ratio of my camera is 2:3 as with just about every DSLR. It's a little easier to understand if you replace "aspect ratio" with "inches" that means any image I shoot is 2x3 inches. But who wants only wallet sizes? So we double it, which gives us the very common size of 4x6. But what if you have a photo you love so much and want it bigger. Well you just double it again to an 8x12. An 8x12?!
When I say, "8x12," to clients I tend to get a few blank stares and then the question, "Do they even make 8x12 frames?" There are 8x12 frames but most likely not at Hobby Lobby or Target. So then the client says, "Well I'll just order an 8x10." That's fine, but an 8x10 will crop two inches of off the photo.
Here's an example. The first one is a 4x6.

Now if I crop it as an 8x10 it looks like this:

Here's another example on a close-up photo. Here's the 4x6:

Here's the same photo cropped as an 8x10:

Here's one more example of a horizontal picture. This is the 4x6:

Now for the 8x10 with the sides cropped:

But what about a 5x7? Well the poor 5x7 is going to get cropped no matter what size the original image is.
Here's an image as a 4x6:

Now for the 5x7. It doesn't crop it a lot, but there is a little taken from the top and bottom.

There's nothing fun or glamourous about cropping photos. If nothing else, I hope this post explains why an 8x10 looks a little different than a 4x6.
Recent Comments