Digital Photo Size & Corresponding Print Size Ratios
After having some trouble with the aspect ratio of our photos and the mechanical cropping of some photoprint shops, I decided to explore the aspects of the more common photographic print sizes and generate ratios to help us do the cropping or introduction of borders at home so the prints will not be whimsically cropped at the printmakers.
4″ x 6″ = 2:3 (.6667:1)
5″ x 7″ = (.7143:1)
8″ x 10″ = 4:5 (.8:1)
8″ x 12″ = 2:3 (.6667:1)
12″ x 18″ = 2:3 (.6667:1)
16″ x 20″ = 4:5 (.8:1)
16″ x 24″ = 2:3 (.6667:1)
20″ x 24″ = (.8333:1)
20″ x 30″ = 2:3 (.6667:1)
Our camera (FujiFilm A205) produces images that are 1200×1600 that are 3:4 (.75:1) ratio by default.
So technically to produce a print that uses the whole photo the camera produces without cropping we must introduce borders into the print to “pad” the image out a bit. We can do this by introduction of a border around the print to produce one of the above print size ratios.
