Simple cropping/printing question

[greggebhardt]

What is the simplest way to crop an image to exactly print to 8X10 size.

[Anupam]

Print digitally or in the darkroom? In PS, you can just use fixed aspect ratios to crop.

[FrankS]

In the darkroom, use a piece of 8x10 photo paper and raise the negative in the enlarger head until the image (in both dimensions) covers the entire piece of paper. You will lose some of the image along the long dimension because of the different aspect ratio of the negative and the printing paper.

Is this an answer to what you were asking? I'm not sure of your question.

[sepiareverb]

Cropping? Cropping?

Best way is to shoot something that is the same proportion and never, ever, ever crop.

[gdi]

Originally Posted by sepiareverb

Cropping? Cropping?

Best way is to shoot something that is the same proportion and never, ever, ever crop.

Yes, shoot 8x10 to start with! If that's too big, shoot 6x7. If you have to stick with 35mm ratio, you need to plan the crop prior to the shot since you lose a good bit of neg. I often print to 8x12 to avoid the issue with 2x3 format.

[rbiemer]

I do it a bit differently; I enlarge the long side of the neg to ~9 1/2" and let the short dimension fall where it will. I typically leave a 1/4 inch border along the narrow edge and have the mat cut to reveal about an eighth of an inch around the photo.
Rob

[FrankS]

Rob, I often print the full 35mm frame on an 8x10 paper too. But the OP asked about full 8x10 printing.

[payasam]

Cannot understand question. There's the masks in many negative carriers and there's the easel for the paper.

[greggebhardt]

I am sorry. We are talking PhotoShop CS3. I gave up my darkroom many years ago and knocked out the wall and put in the AV room. NOT giving that up.

I have about 300 digital image files that I need to crop slightly so that they print on 8X10 paper. I need to crop so that when I resize to 8X10 they fit the paper pretty well.

[ClaremontPhoto]

It depends on the size of the original image.

If it's standard 35mm it will be 3:2 proportion. But 10x8 inches is 5:4 proportion so something has to give - and always has done so.

[whitecat]

If you print 6x9 on the 8x10 would that meet the proportion?

[ClaremontPhoto]

Well 6x9 is still 2:3 so no, it will not fit on 10x8 paper easily.

I prefer to use 'metric' paper such as 150mm x 100mm (that's 4x6 inn the USA), or A4 size which is very close to 300mm x 200mm.

You can still use 10x8 and either crop the negative or trim the finished print.

The 10x8 format is squarer than the standard 35mm negative format.

[whitecat]

I saw a special on Henri Cartier-Bresson. Did anyone see what size paper and print he used on that show?

[f/stopblues]

From "The Impassioned Eye," it looked like he printed an image on paper a size or so bigger than the actual photo; ie. print an 8x10 (or 8x12, whatever) on 11x14 or maybe bigger. There was a large white border and he included key lines. I like the look, but that's an expensive way to get a print!

[greggebhardt]

Originally Posted by f/stopblues

From "The Impassioned Eye," it looked like he printed an image on paper a size or so bigger than the actual photo; ie. print an 8x10 (or 8x12, whatever) on 11x14 or maybe bigger. There was a large white border and he included key lines. I like the look, but that's an expensive way to get a print!

I will be printing the image at 7.5" x 9.5" to leave a 1/4" white border all the way around. Still looking for an easy and method to get what I crop to print in the proportions.

Can some one still help?

[ClaremontPhoto]

You can use 10x8 paper, but you cannot print 35mm negatives without cropping one way or the other.

Print full height, and lose some off each side.

Print full width, and don't use the whole 8 inch height.

The negative is a different shape from the paper.

[ClaremontPhoto]

OK, another take...

When you buy a DVD of a movie it is likely a widescreen format.

Your TV is likely a conventional format.

So you have a mismatch. You can choose a letterbox presentation (blank screen above and below), or you can choose full screen (but you chop off the left and right).

With 35mm to 10x8 you have the same choice.

I crop to 3000px x 2000px and print, and trim to suit, if needed.

[sirius]

I would not crop the photos to fit the paper. It doesn't make sense to ruin the internal coherence of a composition to make it fit a frame.

In photoshop make an 8x10" document that is the resolution you would like. Bring in your photo as a layer and resize it so that there is 1/8" between the top and the bottom of your print (to leave room for the matt). Then when you matt and frame your piece it can cover the extra paper on the two other sides.

my 2 cents

[greggebhardt]

Originally Posted by ClaremontPhoto

You can use 10x8 paper, but you cannot print 35mm negatives without cropping one way or the other.

Print full height, and lose some off each side.

Print full width, and don't use the whole 8 inch height.

The negative is a different shape from the paper.

Please! These 300 images were taken with consideration they would be printed at the 8X10 format! I am simply asking about the fastest way to crop these so that they print out at exactly the 8X10 ratio so I can leave the 1/4" all the way around.

I thank all of you for your advice, usless as it is! <vbg>

[Anupam]

Originally Posted by greggebhardt

I thank all of you for your advice, usless as it is! <vbg>

I still can't see what's wrong with cropping with fixed aspect ratios in PS, which was the first answer you received. Set the aspect ratio to 7.5:9.5 and crop away. If you are asking for something else then I am afraid I don't understand the question.

[gdi]

There are multiple ways of doing it, but to me the most straightforward would be to open the image, crop to 7.5x9.5in (landscape or portrait) then increase the canvas size to 8x10, being sure to have the color of the border you want selected when doing so. I guess you could create an action to speed it up, but you'll still have to tweak the selection for each image.

If you haven't used PS before you could get a book to help, good luck...

[kuzano]

Learn to frame for the final image output. I am frequently surprised by the number of people who shoot with total disregard for the portion of the picture that they want to end up with. Then, in post processing they throw out tons of pixels because "cropping" is so easy and cool. Others have answered the OP question regarding the mechanics, but don't overlook composing the shot for final results.

I addition, your ensuing posts seem to imply that you are looking for a way to "batch crop" all 300 images so that you use the entire captured image to create 8X10 images. I'm not sure that's possible. First, 8X10 as a standard, seems to have been abandoned by the camera, scanner and printer manufacturers insofar as digital is concerned. I think you are faced with treating each image as individual processing to achieve a fixed 8X10 format. I'm sure you can develop a process (formula of processes) that will nearly automate the production of an 8X10 final image size on one image. However, automating a way to apply it to 300 images out of the camera would be a tall order as a batch process.

[rbiemer]

Well, you could simply resize the photos to 7.5 x 9.5 with out locking the aspect ratio. This will alter the proportions of every thing in each of the photos in probably unfortunate ways and you'd still need to sort the landscape oriented photos from the portrait oriented ones... but try this on a copy of one photo file first so you can see the results.
I've attached two versions of one of my photos. One I've resized to 9.5 x "whatever the narrow side is" 6.3 in this case--this one will fit on a 8 x 10 with no problem but will NOT fill the paper. The other I resized to 9.5 x 7.5 which would fit on an 8 x 10 with a nice 1/4" border. I know which one I prefer...
Rob