professional format

[adirty1]

I have heard this before that 4x6 is not a professional format. I personally beleive that but i was forced into selling them. However I am about to stop selling them and only sell 5x7's and up unless it's a wallet. plus i get to sell them frames and mattes.

I was wondering what yall thought about that whole 4x6 print debate

[Silvernic]

I was just visiting with someone about this who cropped all his 4x6's down to 4x5 before giving them to customers because he felt it looked more professional. I kinda thought he was a little nuts, but by the next time that I picked up prints, I started to agree with his thinking. Anything to differentiate yourself from the prints their picking up on their own from costco.

[Michelle Allmon]

hmm. i never thought about that. but what can you do with a 4x5?

[boxofrocks]

Originally Posted by Michelle Allmon

hmm. i never thought about that. but what can you do with a 4x5?

A lot of the pre-cut folios take 4x5s.

[jeffkohn]

The whole notion of crop ratios is pretty screwed up when it comes to printing and framing if you ask me. I guess the closest thing we have to a standard "standard" the 4:5 ratio, owing mostly to large-format cameras I think. This is where we get 8x10, 16x20, 24x30, and even 40x50 prints from. But then there are the oddball sizes like 5x7, 11x14, and 20x24 that seem to have no reason to exist except make printing and framing more difficult. 4x6 at least makes sense, seeing as how it matches the 35mm film format (and digital too of course).

For portraits, I personally think 5x7 is the ideal from a strictly aesthetic viewpoint more often than not. 4:5 is just a little too sqaure for my taste, and sometimes 3:2 is too "skinny" although it can work well for some compositions. For landscapes I generally tend to prefer a wider aspect ratio but will occasionally use 4:5 if it suits the composition.

I don't really think one crop is any more professional than another though.

[Michelle Allmon]

5x7, 11x14, and 20x24

yeah, i've always wondered where those sizes came from. 5x7 in particular, so popular.

that's a pretty sweet folio.

[adirty1]

the 11x14 is an odd size when it comes to framing. normally i frame it in 16x20.

I miss the days of square format and my 6x7...

[Wil_Bloodworth]

Non-professional? Think about that for a second. Professional simply means that someone is willing to pay for it. If the customer pays for 4x6 prints then 4x6 prints are professional. Anyone saying otherwise has their nose too high in the air and needs a reality check. Who cares what the print size is? The purpose of photography is to capture a moment in time and to be creative. All this "X size is better than Y size" talk is just a waste of time. Move on.

- Wil

[Bruce M. Morris]

Does everyone remember that the usual print size from negatives used to be 3.5x5? which scales up even to 5x7? customers wanted the larger size without paying for 5x7's so the Great Yellow Father came out with 4x6 as their standard size prints. Played Hob with my file system, how about ya'lls?