Aspect ratio and the effect it has on your prints
Oh, my time does flash by! There's been another release to Online Photo filer, which has added more seasonal templates and expanded the choice of destinations for the photo badge to link to.
On to today's question, which deals with the charming issue of “when our prints arrive, what will they look like?”
Many new technologies are compromised by a need to keep one foot in the past. For example, the 35mm camera format hearkens back to William Dickson at Edison labs taking Eastman Kodak's 70mm film, cutting it in half and joining them together to provide a continuous strip. The improved version of which was 24 to 36mm or a ratio of 1.5:1, which is where the 6 x 4 standard print derives its size. The aspect ratio of most digital cameras is typically closer to 1.33:1, which is a squarer image and when it lives on a screen not too bad a choice. When you print an entire image to one of the traditional sizes, there's going to be some information cropped from the picture to maintain the ratio of width to length, which we currently do from the center of the image. The bigger the image you are trying to print, the more information you lose on each edge.
There are three ways to guarantee your image you receive is the same as you see on the screen, give or take a pixel. (There's some real world math that doesn't care about hyperbolic statements, but it's really, really close.)
With the first option you get to pick what to print and have the benefit that the standard size pictures that are created will fit your existing frames and match your expectations. To crop an image, start from your thumbnail view and then click on “edit photo”. When the picture appears, change Tabs to “Crop” and then pick the size and orientation of the image you would like to print. You can now select exactly what's kept and then hit crop, if you like the results, save. If not, reset and try again.
With the third option, we provide a print that shows all of the information by using the amazing trick of...using larger paper. Your image is preserved and the only downside is that standard frames may not accommodate them. Hence the naming convention you see in the store under Digital aspect prints 4 x D, which is basically as close to 4 x 6 as we can make it without losing information.
John
OPF shutterbug
On to today's question, which deals with the charming issue of “when our prints arrive, what will they look like?”
Many new technologies are compromised by a need to keep one foot in the past. For example, the 35mm camera format hearkens back to William Dickson at Edison labs taking Eastman Kodak's 70mm film, cutting it in half and joining them together to provide a continuous strip. The improved version of which was 24 to 36mm or a ratio of 1.5:1, which is where the 6 x 4 standard print derives its size. The aspect ratio of most digital cameras is typically closer to 1.33:1, which is a squarer image and when it lives on a screen not too bad a choice. When you print an entire image to one of the traditional sizes, there's going to be some information cropped from the picture to maintain the ratio of width to length, which we currently do from the center of the image. The bigger the image you are trying to print, the more information you lose on each edge.
There are three ways to guarantee your image you receive is the same as you see on the screen, give or take a pixel. (There's some real world math that doesn't care about hyperbolic statements, but it's really, really close.)
- Crop your pictures in advance of placing them in the photo store.
- Check your camera to see if it has a setting to shoot at a 3:2 ratio which is an easier version of number one if you have that option available to you.
- Order a digital aspect print which prints the entire shot in the same manner it's shown on the screen.
With the first option you get to pick what to print and have the benefit that the standard size pictures that are created will fit your existing frames and match your expectations. To crop an image, start from your thumbnail view and then click on “edit photo”. When the picture appears, change Tabs to “Crop” and then pick the size and orientation of the image you would like to print. You can now select exactly what's kept and then hit crop, if you like the results, save. If not, reset and try again.
With the third option, we provide a print that shows all of the information by using the amazing trick of...using larger paper. Your image is preserved and the only downside is that standard frames may not accommodate them. Hence the naming convention you see in the store under Digital aspect prints 4 x D, which is basically as close to 4 x 6 as we can make it without losing information.
John
OPF shutterbug
Comments