Cropping and printing question

Please forgive in advance for perhaps the simplicity of this question but it's something that I truly don't know...

when you crop a picture to get your subject better showcased or to get greater detail (like the bird in a tree shot) do you crop to certain parameters like 4x6, 5x7, etc or do you freehand it?

And then after you crop like that are you limited as to what size print you can get out of that image?

Thank you!

I *almost* always crop to a 4:5 ratio (or 5:4 ratio) so I can print to 8x10. That's unless I plan to actually print at a different size, like 4x6 or 11x14. The only real exception and when I go manual is when there's something in the picture I want to crop out, but then it limits use to online and onscreen viewing.

white_isle wrote in post #12514676
...And then after you crop like that are you limited as to what size print you can get out of that image?

Crop to whatever size works for you, but DON'T crop the original file. Crop a copy or make sure you use the Save As command and save under a new file name.

Like Chas says, keep the original uncropped.

From there, some images may compose better with a different aspect ratio, that's fine -- when I put things out on my Web host the two common aspect ratios are the original 2:3 and 4:5. But for print there are several aspect ratios that get commonly used: the original can print 4x6, 8x12 and 12x18, for example, but a 5x7 and and 8x10 have different aspect ratios, meaning you will want to crop them differently. So having the original can save you grief later.

What I do personally for cropping is export the finished edited file from lightroom to a jpg, then open the exported in photoshop crop it in there to whatever I want.

Get a matte cutter, then you can crop to any size you want/need and put it in a standard sized frame.

For electronic: I crop manually and don't care much for ratios, until recently been trying to keep everything at 5x7.

For print (after messing up a lot of prints), for unusual ratio crops I use 8x11 in lightroom and then cut the image after printing it large.

For smaller prints in usual crops ratios I use lightroom's fixed ratios and export to JPEG before printing.

Lancef wrote in post #12516469
What I do personally for cropping is export the finished edited file from lightroom to a jpg, then open the exported in photoshop crop it in there to whatever I want.

Why? Why not crop in Lightroom? Afterwards you can change the crop or undo it entirely. Alternatively, you can make Virtual Copies with different crops. You are just adding an unnecessary jpg save. Accumulate enough of them and you lose quality.