To crop, or not to crop?

[Damon]

When pp'ing your digital photos to display, do you crop them to their 8x10 equivalents?
or do you leave them the original pixel ratio?
or maybe a little bit of both?

[brad]

Unless I am specifically creating something for a given aspect ratio (like a collage), I always leave it in its original aspect ratio (2x3 for most DSLRs)... more flexibility that way.

[Ahh!]

There was an article on cropping and not throwing away as many pixels in the TPPA mag arrived just this week. Its theme was to make sure to leave the pixel field blank on the cropping tool. Hopefully, it will be online at their website soon. www.tppa.org
That having been said, I leave the .psd uncropped until I am producing the .jpg for the lab. Then I crop, flatten and save as a new filename.psd and .jpg. Then the .jpg goes to the lab.

If you ask 10 PS-ers how many ways there are to change a lightbulb, you'l get 10 different answers (at least). Otherwise, there is more than one way to skin a cat. Some just leave you with less fur to eat than others.

[Damon]

True.

I never destroy original files. The photos are taken off my SD card and copied to disc. Only then do I edit them. When they're edited I save them completely seperate.

I was more curious about cropping for display purposes. Say, for my website or for portfolio.

[johnastovall]

I have the raw so why worry? Crop for the image you want and what you want it say.

Death to standard formats that were what paper makers once had stock in.

Why do you think the make paper cutters?

[Ahh!]

It really depends, but most portrait work gets an 8x10 crop. Most 'scapes get a 16x9. But that's just me. I recall Larry Peters saying he stays now in the DSLR crop...its his style and he sells more frames 'cause their less common in the stores...

[ggeen]

I only crop when I get ready to print and never the original. My photo lab will auto crop in the center but that is not always the best location to crop a given picture. So yes, I crop to aspect ratio when ready to print. -G

[brad]

For art pieces (and sometimes portraits, too), I will crop to whatever size makes the piece... never be afraid to crop to make a statement... for the display piece, that is.

I still leave an original in the original aspect ratio so I can go back and crop differently the next time if I wanna.

[EagleGirl]

Beat me to it Peter. That is really a good article in the TPPA magazine that came out this week.