cropping images post process...

[m_mphotography]

I am not sure if this is the correct place for this question, so if it needs to be moved feel free to do so. My question is, I tend to NOT crop images in camera, instead I do all that post shoot. So, my RAW images are all zoomed out more than I would like for the final image. I do this, because I want to make sure that I can fulfill a 4x6 or 8x10, or other ratio order without much problem. When I do my proofs for clients, I tend to do all of them at a ratio of an 8x10, but I realize that people are not going to order all 8x10's, so I'm wondering what is the standard to crop at for proofs. Do you tell your clients that the images they see, and the images that they get will not necessarily match exactly, depending on the size that is ordered? Should I be cropping, saving and showing a 4x6 proportion instead? a 4x5? Just wondering. Also, I have some images that I did for family, which I plan to just put on CD and send them to family, but I'm not sure how to save them. Should I crop them at the same ratio that my camera sends them?? I have D80, 10Mbps so I get 12.9" x 8.64" SOOC--so if I want to crop in should I crop them at this same size?? does that make sense??

Then, for those of you that sell CDs of your images, at what resolution and crop do you provide these images to your client?

[bondarnes]

Since we do not make proofs we show the clients the full image as captured using a digital projector. We use 8X10/4X5 as our standard print size so we are cropping to that size during our sales presentation unless the client requests another size. For a CD we normally res down to a 6X9 @120 dpi unless the client needs a larger file.