What to know about crop ratio’s when ordering wall art and print products
Did you know that when you print a photograph, some of the original image from the camera may be cropped after the fact? It’s important to know how a crop ratio will impact the photograph you are printing.
So, What is Crop Ratio?
‘Crop’ is not just some thing grown on a farm…in regards to photography it has to do with how you ’cut’ a photograph from it’s original form. Crop Ratio describes the relationship of the width and height of a photo, and is commonly seen as 3:2 or 4:3. This is also called the ‘aspect ratio’. When examining the ratio, the first number is the width of the image, and the second number is the height of the image.
How Are Photographs Affected by Crop Ratio?
After receiving your beautiful photo gallery, filled with images of your loved ones, it’s time to select your favorites to order prints and wall art. So, how does the crop ratio play into that decision? Well, the print size you select determines the crop ratio for your final product. For example, when you order an 8”x10” print, which has a crop ratio of 4:5, you will loose some of the original image in the print, because the image is in a 3:2 ratio.
When you order prints of your images, the print size you choose will determine how your image is cropped. If the crop ratio of your image does not match the crop ratio of the print size you choose, some parts of your image will be cut off to fit the print size.
If you don’t want to loose any of the original image in your print product, you would want to select a product that is in the same ratio as the photo, which is 3:2 ratio for my current camera.
Here is an example of the same image in both ratio’s.
3:2 Crop Aspect Ratio (for a 4x6” print)
4:5 Crop Aspect Ratio (for an 8x10” print)
You can see that when cropped in the 4:5 ratio some of the negative space and part of her arms is lost. In this example it doesn’t gravely impact the overall image, but I personally prefer the image where you can see her hands meeting in a triangle shape.
But, in some instances it can greatly impact the original vision of the photographer, and the strength of the image or composition may be altered, like in this example.
2:3 Crop Ratio; for a 4x6” Print; The shadow is fully maintained in the image.
4:5 Crop Ratio; for an 8x10” Print; The shadow is cropped and the frame is close to the top of the subjects head, making the image less strong.
Common Crop Ratios
Here is a list of common crop ratio’s and the sizes of the prints in that ratio. This is why you may see different crop’s or final images when the same photo is printed in different sizes.
1:1 (8x8, 10x10, etc.)
4:5 (8x10, 16x20)
3:4 (6x8, 9x12, 12x16, 15x20)
You may have noticed that you don’t see a 5x7 print above, that’s because it’s an entirely different crop ratio as well (3.5x2.5)
Personally, I print the majority of my personal wall art in the ratio which preserves the full image (based on how I shot the photo):
2:3 (4x6, 8x12, 12x18, 16x24, 20x30)
Here’s a comparison of one image cropped with the various crop ratio’s…you can see how you need to monitor the impact and adjust the crop for all print products.
Be sure to reach out to your photographer if you aren’t sure what is the best image size or aspect ratio for your wall art.
You deserve to have your memories hanging on your walls in the best light. Questions? Please ask away in the comments…
