How to crop digital photos for holiday cards
After much cajoling and perhaps some bribing, you have finally managed to snap a great digital photograph of the family – even the dog was smiling. You think to yourself, this would look great on our Christmas photo card. You do a little cropping and editing to get the photo exactly the way you want it, save it to your flash drive or CD and rush down to the photo store to print your 4″x 6″ photographs. Painfully, you discover that the top of your husband’s head was cut off when you get your print. What happened?
Last year, I published a Blog on some of the differences between photographs taken with a 35mm camera and a digital camera. Except for hardened veterans that still cling to their 35mm cameras, most everyone has gone digital. Digital cameras are simple to use and one can easily share pictures with family and friends with very little technical skill.
Unfortunately, there is a small problem (quite easily addressed) when printing a 4″x 6″ from a digital image. The aspect ratio of a 35mm camera is 3:2 while the aspect ratio of digital camera is 4:3. When the photo printing equipment takes your digital image, it does a little cropping and re-sizing of its own to create the 4″x 6″ print. This leads to some rather unpleasant surprises as the photos below demonstrate (courtesy of Ritz Photo, Greenwich, CT):
Actual Digital Photo with 4:3 aspect ratio
Cropped Photo for 4"x 6" print
Unless you are a very skilled photo editor, the best way to avoid this problem is to avoid cropping too closely to the top of the photograph. Give the photo printing automated ”editor” a little space to “accomodate” the necessary cropping. In fact, it is often preferable to do a large portion of your editing at the store. Just a little simple planning will help you avoid this common problem during the holiday season. Always, print one photograph to make sure that you achieve the desired result before committing to print your 300 photos.
Richard W. May
Founding Member Stationers Guild