proofs and cropping

[canon shooter]

How are you presenting proofs? CD, on line, 4x6, etc.

Either way I assume many of the pictures will be printed in 8x10, and some 5x7, etc. Do you crop to the size you are printing on each photo before sending to lab??

[Rellik]

Since no one has replied, I'll get the ball rolling.

For proofs, I do it online, although I do have the option for 4x6 proofs at an additional costs. This also helps with exposure of your website as it acts as an online gallery for the bride and groom.

When sending photos that are not 2:3 ratio, I always crop it to my liking first. Otherwise, most lab just center the crop, and you might end up with chopped heads, arms, legs, and such. I use a program called JPEG Crops. It's lossless so it won't have any effect on your JPEGs in terms of adding artifacts. Link here:

http://ekot.dk/programmer/JPEGCrops/

[sapearl]

Hi there Canon - I still use my commercial lab for 4x6 proofing. I process all my RAW wedding images and then run them a couple of times through PS for final output.

The first time I image process I set it for a quality level around 6, sized for 600x400 for my PBase proof gallery. This allows fast loading and small file size for the viewer, about 50-80K per image. The lab proofs are image processed so I end up with file sizes around 1 - 1.5MB each, which is more than enough for the 4x6 lab prints. I delete both the PBase JPGs as well as the low rez lab JPGs from my hard disk once they've been uploaded.

The JPGs I DO save are usually quality level 10 and end up around 2.5 - 6MB each. These are what I ftp to the lab for my album prints and and other enlargements like 5x7, 8x10, etc. Hope this helps . - Stu