PaulPosition
Senior Member
Isn't it just a contracted form of "100%-zoom crop" (what you'd get by zooming in to 1:1 and then using the crop tool) ?
100% crop - What does it mean?
- Thread starter Michael J.
- Start date
Michael J.
Senior Member
For me I decided that a crop is a crop and sorry for my stupidity I don't care 1 %, 5%, 40%, etc..
The 100% crop is simply a way to examine what your actual pixels look like, should you ever care.
Say you have a 16 megapixel camera, D5100 is 4928x3264 pixels. This would be more than 3x taller than your 1080 pixel monitor screen (and the photo software window is even smaller). So at best, you can expect when you view your image, the temporary view you see will be automatically resampled to 25% size (or less). The title bars should be warning that you are looking at 25% size, or whatever the number is. 25% says that every 4x4 block of pixels (16 pixels) is reduced to one pixel representative of the associated color of 16 pixels. You are seeing a very different image than your pixels actually captured... only 6% of your actual data (it is all "represented", but not shown as is).
You can zoom the view to show 100% actual size, which means you have to scroll a few times across it, but that will show your real pixels (if and only if it says 100%). This is 100%, but not a crop.
If you wanted to post that somewhere so someone else can see it, then you need a 100% crop, a much smaller segment of it that can be shown. Basically, that just means a smaller cropped image that can be shown full size in the window without automatic smaller resize, but specifically, it means that it will be shown only at 100% size. So first step is to insure it is smaller than any window it might be shown in.
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Here's a screen shot of five 100% crops of the same image:
All are 100% crops..... 100% meaning one pixel in each image is displayed as one pixel on my monitor. Crop meaning each one (except for the bottom one) has been cropped, or whittled down, do a manageable portion so it can be uploaded to the innernets.
The top left shot has been cropped to 400x600 pixels. The next one is 300x450. 200x300 is next, and 100x149 at the top right. The original image (of a sunflower, if you're wondering), is at the bottom.... the original finished image after my editing..... 3167 x 4750. You can see that each image displays the subject equally.... it's just that some of them are cropped down more than others.
Now, here's the same image, but rescaled down to 800x533 pixels:
Obviously, the rescaled image allows you to see the entire image as intended, something you cannot do with the full-scale image (unless you happen to have a monitor that's 3167x4750 pixels AND you have turned it to portrait orientation!).
The advantage of a 100% crop is you can take a portion of an image, upload it quickly to the internet, and others can view it and/or download it much faster than the full-size original. An example might be a noob wondering what a purple line is doing in her photo, so she's asked to upload a 100% crop of the issue. Then everyone says, "Oh, that's chromatic abberation.... totally normal. Your camera is fine! Here's how you deal with it......"
The reason we ask for 100% crops is if anything less that 100% is offered, data is removed and crucial details may be missing. Anything more is extraneous and wastes bandwidth. Yes, you could toss out a 200% crop, but that would make each image pixel take up 4 pixels on the screen. They only solution to that is to view the image at 50%.
All are 100% crops..... 100% meaning one pixel in each image is displayed as one pixel on my monitor. Crop meaning each one (except for the bottom one) has been cropped, or whittled down, do a manageable portion so it can be uploaded to the innernets.
The top left shot has been cropped to 400x600 pixels. The next one is 300x450. 200x300 is next, and 100x149 at the top right. The original image (of a sunflower, if you're wondering), is at the bottom.... the original finished image after my editing..... 3167 x 4750. You can see that each image displays the subject equally.... it's just that some of them are cropped down more than others.
Now, here's the same image, but rescaled down to 800x533 pixels:
Obviously, the rescaled image allows you to see the entire image as intended, something you cannot do with the full-scale image (unless you happen to have a monitor that's 3167x4750 pixels AND you have turned it to portrait orientation!).
The advantage of a 100% crop is you can take a portion of an image, upload it quickly to the internet, and others can view it and/or download it much faster than the full-size original. An example might be a noob wondering what a purple line is doing in her photo, so she's asked to upload a 100% crop of the issue. Then everyone says, "Oh, that's chromatic abberation.... totally normal. Your camera is fine! Here's how you deal with it......"
The reason we ask for 100% crops is if anything less that 100% is offered, data is removed and crucial details may be missing. Anything more is extraneous and wastes bandwidth. Yes, you could toss out a 200% crop, but that would make each image pixel take up 4 pixels on the screen. They only solution to that is to view the image at 50%.
@480sparky, I wandered back thru the thread earlier and came up with a list of 9 different ideas, though some seem to overlap ever so slightly. I think you have managed to encompass 8.5 of them into one decent explanation. So, I am considering retracting my comment about the ambiguous nature of the term.
This reminds me of why 100% crop may have to stay ambiguous even when everyone agrees to its meaning. Maybe it's digital pixel fumes.
If I have a 6,000 x 4,000 pixel image and I crop it to 3,000 x 4,000, what percent crop is it?? If I preserve the original 3,000 by 4,000 pixels, it's 100% crop, but it's also a 50% crop of the original image long dimension, and a 25% crop considering the image resolution.
In my anything but humble opinion, a crop that can be described 3 ways, needs more clarity.
In Photoshop, when you view an image, the tab will tell you what percentage of the total size the image displayed is. If you enlarged it to where it said the image was 100%, then what you were viewing was the same size in pixels, even if it is greater than your monitor screen, of the original image. Were you to crop out a section of that image, you would be cropping out a section of the 100% image. I hope I explained that in an understandable way.
You guys are way off base. 100% crop is a term for agricultural producers that purchase insurance policies to mitigate any substantial losses to their goods due to drought, pest infestations, hard freeze, etc. The sweet spot for most farmers is 50%-75% crop. But it's not unheard of to carry 100% crop for gourmet mushrooms, aronia berries, etc. Sadly, it is impossible to get 100% crop on genetically modified crops.
Or farmers who get paid NOT to get 100% yield from their farms or grow certain crops. Your friendly government at work, they are here to help
Life is like that. I can't ever spell Albuquerque, but those people seem to like it, and insist on using it just that way. Sometimes we have to just adapt.
Life is like that. I can't ever spell Albuquerque, but those people seem to like it, and insist on using it just that way. Sometimes we have to just adapt.
Knew I shoulda turned left.
There are all kinds of posters in the forum.
The type that add too much detail, when so few want to know any detail about anything.
The type that post stating they don't want to know anything, don't bother them.
The type that have to add the same thing as the previous post said, going on record they knew too I suppose.
The type that just have to post something wildly extraneous, to show how cute they are.
I'm not half trying, I'm sure there are many more obvious categories.
The type that add too much detail, when so few want to know any detail about anything.
The type that post stating they don't want to know anything, don't bother them.
The type that have to add the same thing as the previous post said, going on record they knew too I suppose.
The type that just have to post something wildly extraneous, to show how cute they are.
I'm not half trying, I'm sure there are many more obvious categories.
I guess, this would be the shortest possible explanation: a crop (part, piece) of a picture's full size (in pixels).
When we look at the picture on a monitor, the picture is either shrunk (to fill the screen/to stay within the limits of that screen) or it overlaps the screen (that's those "100%") so we see just a part of the picture.
-Consequently, if the presented crop (part) of the picture is "100% crop", it means that this part "represents" that picture in it's original size. If it is a, say, "50% crop", it means that the part should be enlarged (using some software) to regain it's original size. Contrary to this, if it is a "200% crop", it means that the crop has been "blown up" (or taken from an expanded pic, a pic artificially "augmented") etc.
When we look at the picture on a monitor, the picture is either shrunk (to fill the screen/to stay within the limits of that screen) or it overlaps the screen (that's those "100%") so we see just a part of the picture.
-Consequently, if the presented crop (part) of the picture is "100% crop", it means that this part "represents" that picture in it's original size. If it is a, say, "50% crop", it means that the part should be enlarged (using some software) to regain it's original size. Contrary to this, if it is a "200% crop", it means that the crop has been "blown up" (or taken from an expanded pic, a pic artificially "augmented") etc.
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