Understanding Ratio when cropping

[Mike Buckley]

Soozie (and all),

I've got some minor bad news for you and some major good news for you. To start with the bad news, now that we know your camera model, that's probably not your full-size image, as I suspected. Part of the bad news is that, unfortunately, this information probably makes you more confused than ever. But we'll straighten that out.

The really good news is that your camera produces MUCH larger images that give you a lot more flexibility with regard to the size of your images that can be printed. It's been awhile since I have visited printing sizes, but I think you could make a 20" x 30" print from a full-size image produced by your camera.

Now...go find the original image that came out of the camera, because that's not it. EDIT: I should say that it's very doubtful that that's the original image, depending on your camera settings.

[Stagecoach]

Hi again Soozie,

I'm not familiar with the Canon 550D but from a quick look at its spec the file sizes will be way larger than what you have posted. What you are posting here is a 'downsized' version for the web and of course not the original.

What you will need to do is to undertake you post processing work again on a COPY of the 'original' (this file will be many megabytes in size) and make it the aspect ratio you require. Do not undertake any downsizing and save a copy.

Once you have done that come back and seek advice from here regarding the 'printed size' you wish to achieve and help will be waiting.

PS. And as no one else has said it yet you did a great conversion job to B&W but don't forget to straighten the horizon this time !

Grahame

[Soozie B]

Hi again Gents

If I am understanding you both correctly, the version that I uploaded into flicker and then posted across to here was downsized? If my assumption is correct then I am not fully understanding how get it out of my computer and into this forum, although I have attempted to use tinypic (sure hope I have done it right).

As for your comment Grahame "and make it the aspect ratio you require. Do not undertake any downsizing and save a copy". I'm sorry but I don't understand, which is why I have tried to straighten the pic (never having done that either I am hoping I have done it correctly) and have posted it as is.

I figure there may be other newbies/novices/or those that need a giggle at my nativity that are finding this dialogue helpful/amusing!

Thanks for the compliments regarding the conversion to B&W though, it was nice to think bit by bit I'm getting it all. This teaching process is a bit like a praise sandwich tho isn't it. Tell me something good, pop a little criticism in the middle and finish it off with another piece of good.

[Mike Buckley]

Now that you've got the horizon level, you need to use your Crop tool to eliminate the white areas on the four sides. If you want to use a standard aspect ratio, look for a way to select a "fixed" crop, as opposed to a "free" crop. Once you've done that, look for the standard sizes and pick one. If you don't need to be limited to a standard aspect ratio, simply use a "free" crop and make the aspect ratio whatever you want it to be.

If I am understanding you both correctly, the version that I uploaded into flicker and then posted across to here was downsized?

Yes. I don't know how Flickr works, but either you downsized it before or during the upload to Flickr or Flickr automatically did that for you. (If Flickr does that, I would think of Flickr as doing it to you rather than for you. )

Now, go find that darned original that came out of the camera. Make a COPY of it as Grahame suggested and upload it using the same process that you uploaded the latest image.

[Mike Buckley]

This teaching process is a bit like a praise sandwich tho isn't it. Tell me something good, pop a little criticism in the middle and finish it off with another piece of good.

Hold the mayo.

[Soozie B]

Mike, the crooked one above is the original off the camera and loaded directly here without using flickr.

[arith]

I always fix a border to my images for printing. I don't know the dimensions of your image but I make my longer side bigger with the border then choose to multiply this by 1/(sqr root of 2) to get the dimension of the short side.

This gives me a picture that can be printed to 'A' size paper; 8" x 11", 16" x 11", 16" x 22" approx ect ect. but also I can fit it to A3+ size which is the largest without going to a lot of bother my printer can manage.

If you are going to use a high st printer, it is best to crop to their sizes and sometimes they provide a cropping tool for that purpose.

With yours; if you find the ratio eg 3:2 then make a border and the short side 2/3 the long side.

[Mike Buckley]

Mike, the crooked one above is the original off the camera

I doubt that, Soozie. That image is only 1599 x 1102 pixels and 221 KB. Even if your camera is set to generate its smallest JPEG, I'm reasonably confident that the image file will be larger, though I haven't looked up the specs and don't know your camera. As an example, a quick glance at a review of your camera mentioned that when the camera is set to save the highest quality JPEG, the average file size will be about 6 MB.

It would be helpful for you to understand your pertinent camera setting. It probably gives the alternatives of generating a RAW file and/or a JPEG file. When it generates a JPEG, you probably have two or three settings that affect the image quality. It would be a good idea to use your camera manual to learn how to make those settings if you can't easily determine it by reviewing the settings on your camera.

[drjuice]

Hi, Soozie,

I have several suggestions for you, one of which is likely to receive hoots and jeers from other list members:

1. Tilt - I'd suggest first taking care of the tilt before you mess with cropping the image. In images that imply or impute a specific relationship between the viewer and what's being viewed, it's important to pay attention to what the viewer would think of as a horizon, if one can be seen. Having the ocean tilt "uphill" at the left edge of the image throws me off and I wonder why we're climbing a hill. The other piece is that the top surface of the wharf, except for the ramp between the parking spaces and the structures on top of the wharf, also is inclined to the same tilt so that I'd be walking up the darn hill as well. If you'll take care of the tilt by rotating the image counterclockwise a few degrees as you have in the straightened out version, you'll have more to work with in terms of the cropping.

2. <HootsandJeers>
I once had a similarly panoramic view of a skyline at sunrise through a relatively heavy ground fog and got a lot of compliments on it for the way I laid it out in a portrait-oriented calendar. It was an odd shape because I'd stitched together a panoramic image of 4 images. The finished image scaled for the calendar measured 6.5 inches wide by 3 inches high so I placed it on the page with the bottom edge 3.5 inches above the "bottom edge" of the sheet on which it was printed and which placed the top edge of the image about 5.5 inches from the "top edge" of the sheet. It was the only image in the calendar that was not portrait oriented, but it seemed to work just fine.
</HootsandJeers>

3. I've found that my local Target store has oddly-shaped frames and mattes at reasonable prices, so you might check the Australian equivalent of that type of store. If you're not familiar with Target, they're at Target.com so you could get an idea of what you might have locally that provides the same kinds of products.

4. Since you're in Melbourne, you might want to visit one of the Costcos to see whether they can do the panoramic image printing for you in their photo department (there's one on Footscray Road in Docklands). I've found my Costco guys are very interested in helping out their customers with what I call "oddwad" images and the prices (as you might expect) are pretty good.

Hope this helps.

virginia

[Manfred M]

Soozie; I looked up your camera specs. It has a 22.3mm x 14.9mm sensor and native resolution is 5184 x 3456; nominally an 18MP sensor. A lot of your image has gone missing if you are showing a 1599 x 1102 image.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Soozie, Manfred,

The missing pixels are due to TinyPic, it accepts a maximum of 1600 px on longest side, but it you feed it something bigger, it downsizes to 1599 on longest edge (which is handy because it sorta 'proves' when people didn't downsize before upload).

Chapter and verse on image uploading is here, I have done my best to explain it in a logical way for people just trying to get a picture up. The thread structure is first post is an intro and describes the four different ways of doing that, with each of their limitations. Post 6 is useful if you're having image quality problems and explains a bit about why you should do things a certain way for best results. What I am saying is, you don't need to read it all from post 1 - 6 (and beyond) parrot fashion, that won't help you here. Read post 1 (optionally), Post 2 has a Limitations bit for TinyPic that mentions what I said about their max size, but do read post 6 - it explains how and why you should really always downsize an image (and save it as a separate file, not over the original) before uploading to TinyPic - or anywhere really, if you care about viewers seeing your images at their best, particularly sharpness.

HELP THREAD: How can I post images here?

If you have hosted at Flickr, you should be able to link (from a post here) to an image there, not have to also upload it to TinyPic as well.

Speaking generally here (preaching to everyone almost )
It really is not a good idea to upload any image, even a "SOOC" (straight out of camera) one, without first downsizing it. As Manfred says, they come out uncropped with a size like 5184 x 3456.
Now ask yourself a question; how big is a viewer's screen likely to be?

If a modern, separate LCD, the answer is typically 1920 x 1080 (i.e. HD).
If a laptop; typically 1366 x 768.
If a Tablet; typically 1280 x 800.

If you do upload a full size picture somewhere (as I have here)
You can see it won't fit and they have to scroll around, but people don't notice this because their browser will make it fit if presented as a jpg, they may notice it looks soft though when this happens.

For best quality (and this helps make any picture look better on several counts), please, for web display, do yourselves a huge favour and downsize to -
a maximum height of 1000px
and a maximum width of;

1600px if hosting at TinyPic
1900px if hosting where there's no limit

I do my pictures these sizes because it means I can use them as 'wallpaper' and or screen savers on my PC.

There is usually no point uploading a bigger image;
a) it makes CiC threads with big pictures in take MUCH longer to display (impossible for some if they are on dial up) - this is partly why TinyPic limit the size
b) it gives someone else the ability to rip off your work
c) downsizing makes noise better
d) sharpening after downsizing makes sharpness better as long as the viewer can see it at 100%

Really the only reason to upload a fullsize image, as was the case with my example above, is to give people the ability to "pixel peep" a test shot for critical issues like focus, noise and/or lens distortions.

Hope I haven't 'gone on a bit' too long there Soozie, it is a hobby horse I climb on occasionally
(and it obviously isn't all 'aimed' at you)

Hope that helps,

[Mike Buckley]

Soozie! Thanks to Dave, we now understand that that last image probably IS indeed your full-size image. It's being downsized automatically by the forum software for good reasons that happened to get in the way of understanding your particular situation.

So, get back to those tutorials about using your software to prepare your image for printing.

The missing pixels are due to TinyPic, it accepts a maximum of 1600 px on longest side, but it you feed it something bigger, it downsizes to 1599 on longest edge

Thanks for jumping into the frey, Dave! I'd like to suggest that you add that information to the Help thread. There are certain situations, such as when trying to help out Soozie, when it would be good to know that and have it documented so we can easily be reminded.

[Dave Humphries]

Thanks for jumping into the frey, Dave! I'd like to suggest that you add that information to the Help thread. There are certain situations, such as when trying to help out Soozie, when it would be good to know that and have it documented so we can easily be reminded.

Already there, that was what I was saying in the large rambling paragraph near the top

[Mike Buckley]

Already there

Oops! Where is the eggs-on-my face icon?

[victor]

Hi Soozie,

Have downloaded the original picture posted and resized in GF ver 7 to two sizes. 24in x 8ins and 12ins x 4ins. Sorry had to crop the right hand side a little to fit the ratio of original.

24 x 8 ins can be downloaded from here... http://www.mediafire.com/view/?78y4o9lulasa8dc

12in x 4 ins can be downloaded fro here... http://www.mediafire.com/view/?er25j4de5wcv00t

Check the image quality before printing.Try an A4 size print scaled to fit paper.

I hope it will be OK.

Regards

David

[Soozie B]

Wow, what a fabulous learning curve for so many.

I appreciate all of the involvement everyone has had in this and that an end product resulted (special thanks to David for doing what I almost did but as Maxwell Smart would say, "missed by that much).