Building on the basics of Shutter, Aperture and ISO to control Exposure.
Hi <<First Name>>,
I hope you had fun with Phone apps last month.
Often you will hear professional photographers brag that they "crop inthe camera." What does that mean? Cropping in camera means that when you frame your shot, you capture exactly the image you want as you look through the view finder.While this is fine for most digital images, it is very limiting for prints.
Printing images is a fun thing to do.It is nice to have a brag-book or framed photo for your desk or wall.So why is "cropping in the camera" so limiting?
Digital cameras generally come in three flavors of sensors: full frame (same size and shape as 35mm film), APS-C and compacts. The size and shape of these (long-edge : short-edge) yields their aspect ratio. Full frame and APS-C sensors yield an aspect ratio that is close to1.5(3:2; the long-side is 1.5 x the short-side)and compacts generally yield a 1.33 (4:3) ratio.
For example, the Canon 70D sensor size is 5472 by 3648pixels (5472 / 3648 =1.5).
Side topic5472 x 3648 = 19,961,856 pixels (20MP).
Now bear this in mind. I will not take you down the math path too far, but if you have a Full frame or APS-C sensor you are limited to print sizes that have the same aspect ratio if you don't want to crop your image. These are: 4x6, 8x12, 20x30, 24x36,and 40x60. In other words a 4x6 print has a ratio of 3:2 (4x3=12 and 6x2=12) and the same is true for the other listed sizes.So, if you want to print a 5x7 or 11x14 you must crop the image and if you framed for "crop in camera" you will lose part of the image that you obviously thought was important.
What to do!!! Oh my.Make sure that if you are "cropping in camera" you intend to print in target format that fits. Otherwise, include more in your image when you take the shot so that when you crop to fit, what is lost is not going to affect the image after it's printed.
This is how much cropping will take place when an APC-C image is printed on 8x10 paper - none.
This is how much cropping will be needed for a 11/14 print.If you don't want to see the pink across the bottom you will need to zoom out the image until all is covered meaning you will lose part of the sides.
Crop to 5x7. If you don't want to see the pink across the side you will need to zoom out the image until all is covered meaning you will lose part of the bottom or the top.
Crop to 16x20.If you don't want to see the pink across the bottom you will need to zoom out the image until all is covered meaning you will lose part of the sides.Right! This is just like 8x10 times 2.
Why it really matters.Which part of this image would be good to throw away? Certainly not the top of her head.
Of course you can always print the whole image and trim the excess before matting and framing.
Other things to consider.Framed prints are usually matted and the mat is usually 1" wider on the sides and top and 2"wider on the bottom creating a pedestal for the photo.
If you intend to frame your photo on an 11x16 frame, your pic should be 9x14 to achieve the mat borders.
So why is cropping in camera important then? When you need to crop to make a print, you are stretching the image. The more that you do this the less pixels that are available to create the image. At 8 MP a high quality picture of 300 DPI will be 8x12. You start cropping that image and the high quality print size drops considerably.
Now, today most good dSLR camera sensors are 16 MP or more, so a high quality print without cropping will yield an 11x17 print.
Now if you want to print poster size for a gallery display avoid any cropping to get your image that large.
Happy printing, matting and framing.
and Happy new year.
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