Zenfolio and crop sizes

I've had a Zenfolio site for a short while, it just dawned on me that some of my images do not crop well to 5x7 or 8x10 images in the shopping cart

Is there a standard size (dimensions, not pixel or MB) you should use when you upload your image to Zenfolio and allow print ordering?

Usually My images are uncropped, or mild crops for the finished product. (Nikon D40 - 3008 x 2000 px)


Thanks.

Do they support 8" x 12"? That's what I use when I don't want to crop a digital image. 8" x 12" Frames are liiiittle harder to find but not that bad. Amazon carries some and big places like Aaron Brothers have digital print sized frames.

Zenfolio supports all sizes so I think he means when people download them. Being deep in a large scale printing effort at the moment, I can tell you first hand how annoying it is that most frames (and mattes) are sizes that have NOTHING to do with the actual image. Moreover, when you buy a frame meant for a 5 x 7 image you quickly learn that the "hole" is only 4.5 x 6.5, so not only do you have to make 1 big crop, you then have to make another. By the time you're done putting what once was a beautiful image into a frame it's no longer anything like its original image.

And while I'm on this rant I'm going to say only one more thing and be done with it. We (photographers) try very hard to do "in-camera" cropping so that we obtain that beautiful (and fully pixeled) image that we can be proud of. Turns out that's not a good idea if you ever want to show your work or give some away in standard frame sizes. So unless you're willing to learn how to make your own mattes (it's not easy and the tools are not cheap) then stop taking accurate images and instead take sloppy, extra wide images.

Okay, rant done. I return you to your regularly scheduled program.....

So what I'm hearing is, even if I upload full/uncropped images, the cropping 'tool' available in apps like this aren't much help?

Should I crop everything I plan to offer to sell at 11x17 and see what they look like at 8x10 and 5x7 or is this the nature of the beast?

Maybe just crop one version to 8x10 and only offer that to purchase?

If you care how the final product will look once it's cropped then I would say yes. You will be AMAZED how even a small crop change will completely alter the entire feel of your image. Maybe it's just me or maybe I'm just too sensitive but even small crop changes will alter the entire feel of your work and in some ways produce a completely different image.

Dave_W said:

If you care how the final product will look once it's cropped then I would say yes. You will be AMAZED how even a small crop change will completely alter the entire feel of your image. Maybe it's just me or maybe I'm just too sensitive but even small crop changes will alter the entire feel of your work and in some ways produce a completely different image.

Click to expand...

Agreed.

Thinking about this today, seems there are two schools of thought. I've been learning to crop in camera, shoot what I intend to see after the fact. Sounds like that logic is fine if you only plan to view your images online.

If you plan to print, shoot wide and intend to crop later. Is that how people who shoot families etc do it? They end up supplying all different sizes of prints.

carguy said:

I've had a Zenfolio site for a short while, it just dawned on me that some of my images do not crop well to 5x7 or 8x10 images in the shopping cart

Is there a standard size (dimensions, not pixel or MB) you should use when you upload your image to Zenfolio and allow print ordering?

Usually My images are uncropped, or mild crops for the finished product. (Nikon D40 - 3008 x 2000 px)


Thanks.

Click to expand...

Do the math there - 3008 x 2000 is pretty close to being a perfect 6x4 or 12x8, as HoroscopeFish said. This size won't translate well to 5x7 or 8x10 (but then again, even 35mm negatives never did), so you will always need to crop an image if you want it in that size.

Horoscope Fish said:

Do they support 8" x 12"? That's what I use when I don't want to crop a digital image. 8" x 12" Frames are liiiittle harder to find but not that bad. Amazon carries some and big places like Aaron Brothers have digital print sized frames.

Click to expand...

They're super cheap, but these days, thanks to the digital revolution, 8x12" is pretty much all that Ikea carries at most stores. I tried to get a frame there a few years ago for an 8x10, but all I could find were 8x12.

JudeIscariot said:

Do the math there - 3008 x 2000 is pretty close to being a perfect 6x4 or 12x8, as HoroscopeFish said. This size won't translate well to 5x7 or 8x10 (but then again, even 35mm negatives never did), so you will always need to crop an image if you want it in that size.

Click to expand...

I print a lot of 13x19 prints. Paper is easy to get and so are the frames. Seems to be a new standard size.

I have a habit of composing what I want in the viewfinder. It's a hard habit to break and shoot looser. Also I struggle with zenfolio with clients not cropping at all. The zenfolio forum advised i can put comments in to remind folks to crop but that hasn't helped.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

I hate to break it to you guys but the only solution is to print your own and custom mat yourself to what works best for each image, which as some have pointed out will very from photo to photo. I bit the bullet and arranged through a wholesale frame Company to buy my acid free mat board and Conservation glass through them. It still ain't cheap but it allows me to do what is best for each print. I make most of my own frames but buy metal frames from same source. You do what you got to do. I expect my :frog: prints, given reasonable care, to last a century.

Biggest thing I learned when cropping photos is that your camera sets your picture at 4x6. So, if you double it you get 8x12, 16x24 Etc. When you crop same picture to 5x7 or 8x10 you lose your picture. go to hobby lobby or Michaels and you see mostly 8x10 and 5x7 frames instead of true digital print size. Unless it is 4x6. I did a poster a few weeks ago and had to have it trimmed to fit a 16x20 frame, losing some of the important parts of the picture. I am finally getting used to back up some to get the picture I want. So, I can crop it for 5x7 or 8x10.

Tracsoft - Don Kuykendall said:

I print a lot of 13x19 prints. Paper is easy to get and so are the frames. Seems to be a new standard size.

Click to expand...

So it's not really a problem, then. There isn't much cropping for that size, as the divisor is close to 1.5 (which is about the ratio sensors), so I guess that is part of the reason it's the new standard. 5x7 and 8x10 are outdated... Poor ratios.

I always wondered who came up with 8x10 anyway? That's a 1.25 ratio - nowhere near a film negative back in the day (around 1.5 itself).