Couple of questions edditing, aspect ratios and cropping in PS

[danielhundley]

<p>Hello all. I have a couple of questions regrading cropping, aspect ratios and edditing images in PS. I shoot with a Nikon D200 (2:3 aspect ratio).<br>

Question 1) How does one go about cropping an image if one dosen't know the final outcome of the print size. And if one crops an image for a 4x6 and later wants to print the same image as an 8x10 (different aspect ratio not to mention up-sizing) how does this work. Especially is one adds puposeful vignetting or some kind of border and when goes to crop to print at different size it is not right any more. Which bring me to my second question....<br>

Question 2) What is a normal process at editting a photo. Because the first thing I want to do when I open up a photo is crop it so I can go from there. But I don't understand unless one will only be printing with a specific aspect ratio. Which brings me to my final question.<br>

Question 3) If one knows that the print will only be a specific aspect ratio how does one go about cropping an image in PS (CS3) to an aspect ratio without having specific deminsions.<br>

So many question...I know. Thanks in advance for your help and happy hollidays,<br>

Daniel</p>

[garydem]

<p>your first 2 questionms-<br>

1. for me it doesnot matter what the final print size is going to be. as you said the final print could be 4x6 a 8x10 a 16x20. what i go by is the final image scene that i want, if that result is an odd aspect ratio so be it. i am not going to sacrifice an otherwise good image just to make it fit on certain piece of photo paper. i am going for the best image i can ghet no matter the size or aspect ratio. i will then print it, if i get more white margins on 2 sides than normal that is the way it is. it can be trimmed or masked in a the frame so the extra white is not visable.<br>

2. the normal process of editing pic is going to depend on what software you have to use. i have pe6 and cs2 with some pluging programs that i have found usefull and nice to use. i always start in pe6 , if ok i do not leave and the pic is ok and that point i do not open cs2. one mistake beginners make is that some pp is good so a lot is great. wrong. my thinking is to do the lesst pp i can get away with doing. if you have to ask yourself or anyone if a pic was pped too much it very probably was. for me, the question should not have to be asked at all. what you do in pp is going to depend on what you shoot and how it is shot. i shoot jpegs all the time. (if raw, then you have to use a raw converter, then start the pp process). and i put a lot of effort time skill knowledge care and experience(gained from 38yrs of slr/dslrs, i shot slides for 32yrs.). i firmly believe in getting the shot right in the camera. this means that i take the shot with the correct composition( this means little or no cropping later. i get this by altering the zoom amount switching lenses moving positions and trying landscape vs portrait). i also get 95% or better(sometimes 100%) of my shots correct in terms of exposure and wb. this means later that in pp there is only touchups to do; no heavy duty pping. heavy pp is simply not needed; the care and time and effort was put into the taking of the shot.<br>

my workflow is as follows-crop(if needed), auto levels(or levels), auto contrast(or levels), shadows/highlights(maybe, levels?), noise ninja(to check and reduce noise if needed), lastly focus magic(if FM indicates no then i switch to auto sharpen. note-if focus magic is used then you should not sharpen at all, this is a sure fire way to get artifacts, it is double sharpening). then save the final image as a tiff. all future work is done off the tiff. put in to the appropiate folder. the original jpeg goes into a jpeg holdall folder for future use if any. after every 4.1gb of jpegs, burn to a dvd. all images are save on a external hdr drv with 2 other ext hdr drvs as backups. all work is done with the images on the primary hdr drv, never the backups.<br>

note-all pp work is NOT making the image; the making of the image was done in the dslr. it is touchup only and then only IF needed. the above workflow assumes that all steps are done. in practrice some or almost all or all can be skipped and go straight to the sharpening(or focus magic) and save as a tiff. the only exceptions that i have are my panoramas and hdr images which by their nature are made in the pc.<br>

3. your question 3 was answered in my 1 above.</p>

[grant_hagen]

<p> For what it's worth, here's my opinion:<br>

1) If you want to maximize your options, don't crop a picture until you know what the final output size is going to be. Once you know the output size, then you open the edited picture and crop for that size. Do a <em>save as</em> on the new crop so that the original file doesn't get overwritten.<br>

If you want to crop the master file for artistic reasons, the same things apply. You're going to have to recrop if you output a copy to a different aspect ratio.<br>

2) I don't crop anything unless I have a reason for doing so. If you're cropping all or most of your photos, it seems to me that not enough attention is being paid to composition when the picture is being taken. But, if you are going to crop a photo, doing it first is a good idea. It makes the editing go faster (lower file size) and you don't waste time with local enhancements on areas that will eventually be cropped out. Unless you know ahead of time what the final output size will be, don't crop unless it's for improving the composition.<br>

3) You can use the Rectangular Marquee tool to crop to a specific aspect ratio. It doesn't matter about the specific output dimensions. If you do a 3:2 aspect ratio crop, all you have to do is upsize or downsize to get to any print dimensions that have a 3:2 aspect ratio. In the RM options box, select <em>Fixed Aspect Ratio</em> in the <em>Style </em> field. Then put the numbers you want in the <em>Width</em> and <em>Height</em> fields. You can then drag the marquee around in the picture and any crop you make will be at the chosen aspect ratio.<br>

I don't have CS3, so there might be a faster, better way. But, this is pretty fast!</p>

[Former P.N Member]

<p>Spend a few dollars and get a copy of QImage (<a title="http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage/" href="http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage/" title="http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage/">http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage/</a> ). Edit your image in the original aspect ratio and print via QImage - cropping as desired. That way you only maintain one version of the image and crop only when printing.</p>

<p>QImage also does a much better job of print sharpening than I could ever do in PS.</p>