What does it mean?

[boubouoz]

When I look the exit of my picture, I can see dimension : 2592x3888, and crop dimension : 2592x2877.
Can I know the dimension in centimeters or inches with that? What does it mean? Maybe stupid, but I need to know...

 

[erro]

An image doesn't have any physical dimensions until you print it. And you can print it at any size. PPI will vary accordingly. Or the other way around: if you specify PPI, the size will be whatever it becomes.

- pixels
- physical size
- PPI

All three are in relation to one-another. Change two of them and the third will sort itself out. You can't set all three manually.

 

[clee01l]

[quote author=boubouoz link=topic=7754.msg52975#msg52975 date=1252344515]
When I look the exit of my picture, I can see dimension : 2592x3888, and crop dimension : 2592x2877.
Can I know the dimension in centimeters or inches with that? What does it mean? Maybe stupid, but I need to know...
[/quote] The "2592x3888, and crop dimension : 2592x2877" refers to the Height and Width in Pixels. The physical size of your camera sensor is approxinately 16mmX24mm. As Robert suggests, once it leaves the camera, it ceases to have dimensions in physical units until it is redisplayed on a screen or in print where a scale is applied to the Pixels to fit the units of the display media. If you look further into the EXIF, you will see an X & Y Resolution and a Resolution Unit By default the EXIF X & Y Resolution is set to 72 and the resolution Units are set to inches. These terms are artifacts from when the EXIF standard was first adopted and do not in anyway relate to the physical size of the recording medium but can be applied to the display medium

 

[boubouoz]

Ok, I understand that.
Now, talking about print. With my canon 4'd, if I print 4x6, or all sizes ratio 2:3, the picture won't be crop. Is it right? But if I crop at another size with another ratio, my picture will be crop automaticaly.
So, what do you do when you crop manually your picture the way you want until it looks perfect, so the size of the picture isn't a standard print size. You will end up with a picture with white borders, or you will need to crop it again to fit a standard size.
If it's a picture for me, I don't really care because I can do it myself. But, I started to shoot a few portraits or weddings, people I know (who know nothing about photography), and give them the dvd with all the pictures (most of them cropped) and I don't want them to end up with white border on their pictures!!!
I don't really know if I'm clear, but it has been a trouble for a while and I would like to find a solution...

 

[RikkFlohr]

When supplying images to a client, particularly private individuals (weddings, portraits, grad pics) it is more important to use standard sizes in your crop. Clients hate not being able to be buy a frame off-the-shelf for their pictures. On your client CD's if you stick to standard matte and frame sizes, your clients will be much happier-and you don't have to worry about borders on pics or cropping beyond your artistic control.

In the example pixel dimensions you supplied you are almost exactly half-way between 8x1' and Square. Create a snapshot with the crop you like so that you don't loose it (Snapshot Panel on Left Side of Develop module) and then try an 8x1' and a 1x1 crop and see which one yields as nearly a pleasing composition as your 2592x2877 crop (roughly 9x1'). Then temper that with frame availability. 8x1' is probably the way to go.

If your client is going to have custom framing done anyway, you can crop it for creative content and let the print maker/framer hide the border.

 

[Brad Snyder]

boubouoz, it really does come down to shooting 'crop-safe' photos to begin with. There's no pro-tip or magic solution to the problem. Rikk gives good advice for dealing with 'clients', either paying or family and friends, while Cletus explains the arithmetic, etc.

The first rule is that 4x6, as your camera produces, is the 'most rectangular' of all the common print aspect ratios. (at least with US measurements) All of the other common paper aspect ratios are more square, so if you choose them, you will alway be trimming from the long dimension of your image, i.e. the width of a landscape, or the height of a portrait. Always try to frame the original shot with a little extra room there, if you anticipate these downstream cropping issues arising.