Comments on: A pro’s guide to prepping your digital images to print (and sell!) beautifully

By: Dave M

Dave M — Mon, 27 Feb 2023 14:21:22 +0000

Whoa…….someone in a group recommended the “11×15” which is something I hadn’t heard in years…….so I did a search to see if that idea was spreading.

It’s really not, and there are REALLY good reasons.

One, its an unnecessary bunch of extra work, that only ensures that not ONE picture for ONE customer will be printed EXACTLY the way you compose it. Not one.

But it’s worse than that, because your first step is to throw away 9% of your image quality…it’s just gone. You can’t ever get it back.

THEN, in pretty much every scenario, the customer will throw away ANOTHER chunk of image quality, no way around it. In fact, now the 8×10 becomes the LEAST destructive shape, only costing you 16% of your image quality…..but the 4×6 you started with…..and every variation of that aspect ratio, costs your poor photo 18% of your pure image quality.

That’s before you consider having lost even more to a crop for artistic reasons…..it’s just 18% of the quality GONE.

And really…..it’s gone for no real gain. Just recommend customers use GOOD aspect ratios, and leave your files at 3:2 like 99% of the pro photographers do.

I tell customers “these images are not intended to be 8×10, if you WANT 8x10s, let me know, I’ll make you a special file” That happens like 3 times a year.

Or create specific aspect ratios for ARTISTIC reasons, not compromise/safety net reasons, and TELL your customers what sizes to print them.

11×15 is just NOT a good idea.

By: Beth Scholtes

Beth Scholtes — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 20:39:41 +0000

In reply to Kate Luber.

Thank you so much! So, if I understand, you just set the custom crop on your first print when you are editing and then lock it so they all have the same crop? So, you don’t offer anything larger than 8×10 in your Shootproof . Now, if they want to order 20×30 canvas somewhere, they could do that with the digitals, though right…and not use you? I am just trying to get it all worked out so there is no unhappy moments if they choose to print somewhere on their own. Thank you for your help! This was a great article! So helpful for me

By: Jessica swayze

Jessica swayze — Thu, 05 Nov 2020 22:50:05 +0000

Hi Kate ,
Thank you for this article. I’m new to dslr photography. Because of covid and my autoimmune conditions, as well as having a baby when it all started , I decided to take up a new hobby. It started with photos I took at the beach from my iPhone. I tweaked them a both through my phones editing and instagram and they turned out great. I shared them with my MIL. She loved them so much she asked me to take pics at her wedding. So then o had to hit a new camera. I got a Nikon d5600. I am using Lightroom app on my phone just for now and have the subscription. But I’m having cropping problems. I wanted to turn the wedding photos from her wedding into an album for her. So I went to Walmart and printed them from the machine because I wanted to test run the format I saved them back into the SD card as which was “tiff”. But Walmart’s machine has an auto cropping feature you can’t shut off . It botched a lot of my photos . It was either have body parts cut out and do their crop suggestion or it was leave them the way I had them and have thick white boarders to cut off the what was supposed to be a 4×6 photo. I custom cropped them in light room. Some I didn’t even crop at all. Some of them came out fine and stay true to 4×6 and some of them turned out where I had to cut boarders and shrink the size of the actual print. Was this a Walmart machine issue , was it something I did during my edit or was it something I messed up doing my shot ? This was free for her so I didn’t make any profit off it because it was more of a practice thing for me . But could you please give me some insight on what I did wrong? I am also taking an online digital photography class through Alison to try to get better. Thank you for your time and your article. Your work is amazing .

By: Kate Luber

Kate Luber — Mon, 05 Oct 2020 17:18:08 +0000

In reply to Beth Scholtes. Yes, choose a custom crop and type in 11x15. Then export just as you said and upload to Shootproof and you're done. I don't offer large sized prints or canvases for direct purchase on Shootproof because large wall prints need additional sharpening to look the best, so they have to order those from me. All of that is detailed in my print guide I send to clients with the gallery.

By: Beth Scholtes

Beth Scholtes — Sun, 04 Oct 2020 00:22:43 +0000

I am a newbie and just got my Shoot Proof pretty much set up. So, if I understand right, I choose “Custom” when I crop in Lightroom and the boxes pop up and I type in 11 and 15 in those boxes? So, 11X15 is what it looks like. Then, when I export, I export at 100 percent and 300PPI, and I don’t have to add any long edge or anything else? Then, my clients can print whatever size they want. If they print a 20×30 canvas, the can do so through Shoot Proof ( I have it set up as MPix as my preferred vendor) and they will be able to print the canvas order? Thank you SOO much for your help!

By: Barbara

Barbara — Sun, 07 Jun 2020 06:09:36 +0000

I am still such a newbie to photography (just for fun right now) however, this tioic has been plaguing my mind! Thank you for such great, simple & precise info!

By: Kate Luber

Kate Luber — Wed, 08 Jan 2020 16:20:29 +0000

In reply to Matt Roberts Photography. I'm so glad it was helpful!

By: Matt Roberts Photography

Matt Roberts Photography — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 03:23:13 +0000

WOW!!!!! What a VERY informative article. I’ve been reading about the aspect ratio issue all over the place. I get it now, but your post here REALLY cemented things and kept it very simple.

I just started delivering digital files to my clients and have also linked that delivery to a high-quality professional printing service (Millers) where they can alacarte order what they want. I JUST started and held my breath on orders… but NOW I will make changes in my shooting, and exporting etc. I also do this part time and have a day job (for now) where I travel a lot and don’t have a lot of time as you described. This all makes perfect sense to me.

Thank you so much for the advice here. I will read this again AND I will subscribe to your site. Thank you,
MR

By: Kate Luber

Kate Luber — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 22:55:43 +0000

In reply to Christine. In the develop panel crop tool drop downs, go to "Enter Custom" and you can enter ratios. This lets you crop each image to your liking at that ratio. Then you can specify actual dimensions as needed on export.

By: Christine

Christine — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 18:31:03 +0000

Thank you so much for such helpful information, Kate! Quick question: I can’t figure out how to change the aspect ratio (as opposed to changing the size of the photos in inches) in LR. Do you mind sharing how you change from 2:3 to 11:15? I seem to only have the option to change the size in inches…Thank you!