Ava, Living Art Studios Dance Recital
When photographers crop photos they can choose any aspect ratio (length vs width) that they want to suit their artistic purposes. If they are making their own prints that isn’t a problem.
Living Art Studios Dance Recital. This photo was cropped to a very long aspect ratio for the local newspaper.
The problem comes in when you as a client order a print from a lab that uses standard paper sizes. If the photo has a non-standard aspect ration (like these dancers in white) the lab is going to want to crop the print to fit a standard paper size.
I sell prints of my event photos at Zenfolio in the Clients section. To make ordering simple for my clients, I crop my photos to one of the two of the most common aspect ratios, 2×3 and 4×5.
The 2×3 aspect ratio print sizes are 4×6 inches, 8×12, 10×15, and 20×30 inches.
The 4×5 aspect ratio print sizes are 4×5 inches, 8×10, 11×14, and 20×24 inches.
Choosing the “Best Fit” Print Sizes
Screen Capture: Print size options at Zenfolio. Click image to see a larger version.
When you click on a photo at Zenfolio, on the right you are given a long list of print size options. If you don’t know which sizes are the best fit for the photo you selected, at the upper right click the VISIT SHOP box.
Prints, Gifts, and Decor options. Click image to see a larger version.
These options come up next. If you want a print, under PRINTS choose “Best Fit”. Best Fit gives you the best print sizes so your image is printed without any cropping.
Best Fit, Small Size, Click image to see a larger version.
This comes up next. Your first best fit option is a Small Print, which for this image measures 4×5 inches. In the box at the upper right click the down arrow to see more best fit size options. (I will cover Paper Type later in this article.)
Small. Standard, Large, and Very Large options. Click image to see a larger version.
You can choose between the Small Print option (4×5 inches for this image), Standard Print (8×10 for this image), Large Print (11×14 for this image), and Very Large Print (20×24 for this image).
Paper Choices
“E-Surface” is a standard print on standard photographic paper. This is what you would ordinarily choose for most images.
“Kodak Metallic” has vivid, enhanced colors. If you want a jazzed up color version of your image, choose Kodak Metallic.
“Black & White” gives you a colorless, black and white image.
Do It Yourself Cropping
What if you don’t want a “best fit” option? What if you want to crop the image? You can choose any of the different size options and crop to your hearts content. You can keep the same aspect ratio and crop the image when you get to the shopping cart. You can also change the aspect ratio.
The photo of Ava at the top of this article is in a 4×5 aspect ratio. What if you want to try a narrower 2×3 aspect ratio? Instead of going with the best fit option, pick one of the 2×3 aspect ratio print sizes (4×6 inches, 8×12, 10×15, and 20×30 inches). Zenfolio will add the image to your shopping cart.
Ava, shopping art, cropping options. Click image to see a larger version.
When you get to your shopping cart you will see a cropping square over the image. You can change the cropping square to crop the image as much as you want, while keeping the narrower 2×3 aspect ratio.
Ava, Living Art Studios Dance Recital
This is the image of Ava cropped to a 2×3 aspect ratio.
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