Cropping and workflow

[steve_l]

Hi everyone, I guess this is more of a workflow question and I need some

advice. I have only shot a few weddings and have done fine, but I really

struggle with the workflow afterwards. I shoot jpeg convert to TIFF and do

some adjustments. Now is where I get stuck. I like to crop my photos even for

proofs, but I am not sure the right way to do this. I am shooting on Canon

Mark II 1D. Out of 500 shots I want to crop about 200 of them. I am probably

going to make an 8X10 album, so should I be cropping everything to 8x10? What

if the B&G want an 11x14 later. I know this is probably basic, but I have

been struggling with this.

[ben_rubinstein___mancheste1664880652]

SHOOT RAW! it is far far faster and easier to crop in ACR than in CS2 and you can apply a crop to hundreds of files in a second should you wish. You can also change the crop at any time without having to save multiple copies of your files. BTW IMO shooting in jpg and then converting to TIFFs is rather much like bolting the stable door after the horse has fled is it not?

 

I could go on for hours about why shooting RAW is faster worflow wise and more convenient as well as giving so much better quality, latitude, DR, etc. But I won't :-)

[timberwulf]

Actually it is not closing the door after the horse got out Ben. Though I tend to save to PSD when shooting JPG instead of TIF, the idea is to be able to work on the files a bit without further degrading the file by saving it to JPG.

 

I'll not reopen the JPG vs. RAW debate here - but both have their benefits, and many great shots have been taken in both formats. As for cropping to 4x5 format, this is something I like to do image by image, as some require a little different positioning of the crop depending on my intended composition.

 

That said, to the OP: You'll not want to reduce the native size of your images. The idea isn't to "crop to 8x10", but rather to crop to a 4x5 aspect ratio. This can be done in Photoshop CS2 (probably the slow way) by choosing the retangle selection tool, selecting "Fixed Aspect Ratio" in the "Style" property in the top bar, and then entering a 4 and a 5 in the proper text boxes next to the style drop down. So long as that is set, your retangle select will be in the right aspect ratio to print an 8x10, 4x5, 11x14, whatever "normal" size you need. The image itself won't be sized downwards, allowing you to print larger files later as well as smaller ones.

 

My workflow isn't totally perfect, I'm sure someone will tell you a better/faster way, and I too prefer shooting RAW and using ACR to crop, but you can get by just fine with JPG when needed. :)

[steve_l]

Thanks Ben and Garry. And I will take your advice and start shooting raw. I am still using CS and i cannot crop in raw. Garry, you mentioned to use the rectangular marquee tool and set to 4x5 What do you do after that? How do you crop?

[ben_rubinstein___mancheste1664880652]

Choose the crop tool, enter the figures, leave the DPI box empty and drag the cursor for the crop needed then double click!

[jon jacobson]

If you know your crop is dead center on every image, seems like you could write an action using the Marq Select tool (M).

 

If each image will be different, record the action with a stop, manually adjust, and continue.

 

ACR would still be tons quicker though. :)