Sizing

I am working on some RAW files. I shoot an XTi (1.6 crop) so my prints come back 8"x12". I'd like to crop them to be 8"x10" in CS2. Is the best way to accomplish this by adjusting the canvas size? Should it be exatly 8x10? If this is correct at what step should this be done in the workflow?

Guess I need to go get the 5D to take care of this problem. Thanks for your help! EricL

Be careful. Changing the aspect ratio of the photo from 1.50 to 1.25 could result in your photo being squashed. It's better to select and crop out a portion that has the right shape.

Unfortunately a 5D wouldn't help as it has the same aspect ratio as the XTi (and indeed every Canon DSLR). I can sense you'rte looking for an excuse to upgrade but I'm afraid this isn't it...

You have two choices, one is, as Stewart suggests, crop to a 8x10 size and remove a portion of the photo of you choice. The second is to size the image so it fits on an 8x10 sheet ( for example 6x9") and you get the image as shot with some white borders around the image. Ido this frequently and don't mind the border. Good lcuk, Dennis

Most processing programs have an option on the rectangle-selection to fix the aspect ratio. I use that a lot when I'm cropping my shots down to 8x10 or 4:3 (for full-screen monitor use).

If you mat you prints for display, you can easily make a custom mat opening to fit any aspect-ratio that looks good. I often like a more horizontal look (closer to HD's 16:9 or even wide-screen's 2:1). If you don't use a mat, then just trim the edges of the print to have a uniform border (I like rotary-cutters for that, personally).

Cheers,

Geoff S.

I knew I had answered this before. Here it is:

Beau Hudspeth wrote:
Firstly, if you want to crop from the center you will need to know where the center is. If you do not know:

• Turn on rulers (CTL-R) if they are not already on
  
• Select the entire canvas (CTL-A)
  
• and drag a guide from the left side. When you get close to the center, it will snap there.

One you have your center point:

• Press 'C' to bring up your crop tool
  
• Put the the dimensions you want to crop to in the Width and Height box
  
• Drag ot the crop box till it is the full height of your image and move it over till the center point snaps to the guide you made in the center.
  
• Without double clicking or pressing enter, drag two more guides to the sides of the crop box and press ESCAPE. You should now have three guides and the proper aspect ratio for the print size you want between the two outer ones.
  
• In the crop options, press the CLEAR button
  
• Now, drag your crop tool again from top corner of the left guide, over the center guide to the bottom corner of the right guide.
  
• Press ENTER to crop you image.

The reason we do it this way rather then pressing enter while we had the first crop ready to go, is so that we don't resample our image.