4x5 vs 6x7 crop

Roger Cole · Aug 19, 2014

jnanian said:
i guess now i can ask it

not to cause trouble, but why crop at all ?
when you compose the image, do you use the whole view if so
why crop out part of what you composed to be part of the image?
you suggest you are stingy about maximizing your negative, doesn't cropping it
defeat the whole purpose ?

whenever i use a 2x3 back i usually compose full frame and don't crop, that rectangle
always looks nice on 5x7 and 8x10 with a border ......

There was a big thread on this before but bottom line (heck, I think you were in it, stirring things up?) is that some folks do and some don't. Me, sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. The world, and the compositions I spot or decide to create, don't always come in per-arranged aspect ratios corresponding to the camera I happen to be using. When un-cropped frames work for my composition, I don't crop. When composition needs cropping IMHO then I happily do so. I'd say about 1/3 of my 6x6 negatives are cropped to rectangles, for example, while the rest are printed square.

YMMV. Do what works for you and makes sense to you.

ic-racer · Aug 19, 2014

LMNOP said:
I've addressed this already. Not cropping the image other than cleaning up the negative by getting rid of the black edges from scanning.

Sorry I have no idea what that is, ill just ignore this thread...

LMNOP · Aug 19, 2014

Roger Cole said:
There was a big thread on this before but bottom line (heck, I think you were in it, stirring things up?) is that some folks do and some don't. Me, sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. The world, and the compositions I spot or decide to create, don't always come in per-arranged aspect ratios corresponding to the camera I happen to be using. When un-cropped frames work for my composition, I don't crop. When composition needs cropping IMHO then I happily do so. I'd say about 1/3 of my 6x6 negatives are cropped to rectangles, for example, while the rest are printed square.

YMMV. Do what works for you and makes sense to you.

I completely agree. And I may have used the wrong term, because everyone is asking me why crop at all? I don't know how much more clear I can be, but when I scan negatives, there is a black frame surrounding the exposure, you know, where the exposed section ends. I am simply getting rid of that with a preset ratio. I think everyone does this, not sure if that qualifies as cropping, but my goal is to maintain all of the negative when possible.

MattKing · Aug 19, 2014

LMNOP said:
I completely agree. And I may have used the wrong term, because everyone is asking me why crop at all? I don't know how much more clear I can be, but when I scan negatives, there is a black frame surrounding the exposure, you know, where the exposed section ends. I am simply getting rid of that with a preset ratio. I think everyone does this, not sure if that qualifies as cropping, but my goal is to maintain all of the negative when possible.

It is the "preset ratio" part that is confusing us.

Why do you feel constrained to using a preset ratio? Why not just manually crop to the edges of the imaged area?

Old-N-Feeble · Aug 19, 2014

^^^ Right... why not keep the full-size full-resolution image and only crop/resize when ready to print.

Roger Cole · Aug 20, 2014

LMNOP said:
I completely agree. And I may have used the wrong term, because everyone is asking me why crop at all? I don't know how much more clear I can be, but when I scan negatives, there is a black frame surrounding the exposure, you know, where the exposed section ends. I am simply getting rid of that with a preset ratio. I think everyone does this, not sure if that qualifies as cropping, but my goal is to maintain all of the negative when possible.

Just use the crop tool in PS then. Not automatic but takes about 5 seconds.

4x5 vs 6x7 crop

Roger Cole

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