Cropping and How?

I'm genuinely curious about this rather arcane topic.

I usually crop to a 2x3 ratio and try like hell to make it fit the rule of thirds. For a headshot I'll often crop square. I do this on the idea that if the subject (usually a model) wants to print anything, a printable ratio (4x6, 5x7, 8x10 ) is easiest to do. However, there are times where a "printable" size/ratio is less than the optimal crop for the aesthetics of the image.

So the question for discussion is: Am I limiting the aesthetic value of the image by limiting my crop options? What do y'all do??

Well, I figure it's safe to always keep a "version" at the original aspect ratio. But then I will frequently produce a version cropped to "please the composition" -- 4:5 or 3:4 or whatever. And then, what I do beyond that will be for a specific print size.

That's all easy for me to do because I do it all in my Raw processor so that I can have all the originals and versions at my fingertips without bogging down a lot of disk space. If you have to do your cropping in an editor like Photoshop, well, I'd figure out an efficient way of managing things without getting rid of images that you may need in your ongoing project.

johngalt_ny wrote in post #12273236
Am I limiting the aesthetic value of the image by limiting my crop options?

Yes.

Matter of choice. For a web gallery or a series, I limit myself to a constrained aspect ratio. Or maybe two different ratios (2:3 and panorama for instance)
For publication: I don't determine aspect ratio.
For a single print: I have final say, and do what I prefer.

Then again, I also shoot for a certain aspect ratio. Framing is different for 2:3 then for 3:4

Don't crop your master file AT ALL; and when you do crop, don't do it arbitrarily, do it for the specific purpose.

For print, crop to the specific print size, obviously.

For proofing, crop to 11:15 shape - read.

Interesting article.

Thanks guys. Anyone else?

If you do not WANT a conventional aspect ratio and you also do not print your own (for example, you want a larger dimension than your printer can accomodate), it is possible to have that special aspect ratio printed on a conventional size paper.

It is fraught with issues in getting what you want, but not impossible to do, when you are specific in the instructions to the professional printing lab.

For example, you can tell a lab "I want this 20000x100000 pixel image printed to make an 6"x30" image within a 20x30 standard print dimension".
If you fail to communicate that so specifically, you can get back a 20"x30" print with the 20" height dimension filled by 20000 pixels and 30000 pixels filling the length dimension and the other 70000 pixels of the length lopped off by the 30" dimension and someone's guess about what 30% of the length to include!

I do 2:3 99.9% of the time, if people want to crop from there then great but I don't want to limit options by throwing data away.

Any cropping throws data away, regardless of the shape. Nobody should crop their master files at all, IMO, and only crop for proof and print.