Wives are confusing! :D

So, my wife asks me if when you crop a photo, if you should crop it to a certain size. I'd always looked at cropping as eliminating the unwanted space in a picture, not arriving at a certain size. Her impression is that if you crop to, say, a perfect square then when you go to print that image, that it will distort the image to force it into the size you are printing.

My thinking is that when you crop what you want, it will print fine in whichever size (obviously not billboard size unless you have gigapixels :lemo.

Basically...my thinking is "crop away...damn the consequences, it will be just fine.

Thoughts, suggestions...I'll be forwarding this to the wifey...so...I love you honey and I would never assume that you're wrong, even if you are

Most of the time we do have a little leeway in our cropping in order to achieve our goals. I will take into account sometimes what size print I am going to make so that it is a standard frame size so it won't cost me a fortune for a custom frame. If it is a really special picture and the framing is very critical then I will spring for the big bucks to frame the odd size.

So then, the size that you crop it to does directly affect what size you can print? I hadn't thought that it worked that way. What would you do when cropping your work if you had no intentions of printing/framing right away but "might" at some point? (basically, a default)

I think you may be talking about two different things. Cropping is simply adjusting/cutting away unwanted objects. You usually do this for artistic purposes. If you change your image size but maintain the aspect ratio, your print will not be distorted (or forced into a particular size). If you don't maintain the aspect ration, then you could force a square print into a 3X5 format and end up with a very distorted photo.

Thanks...I love your signature, btw!

I edit with PhotoShop and there when you crop you can preset the width and height when cropping. When you do this it can be a small part of the photo or the majority of it BUT the proportions don't change. If I set it at 8 X 10 then I could print a photo that would be exactly 8 X 10 and not be distorted. I could decide to crop to print a 13 X 19 and the print would be correct for that size also. You can usually fit most cropped pictures into one of the standard size frames that way. Try several crops to see what works best. Custom frames and mats can be very expensive.