Cropping photos/negatives to Preferred Ratios

[audioexcels]

I know many choose different format sizes below 8X10 and crop the negative to a size of preference or one that simply looks better than the native size. I have seen a lot of 4X5 work cropped.

With curiousity, what is your workflow when cropping a particular sized negative from sizes below 8X10 format?

Do most crop in photoshop?

Take 5X7 format for a moment which many prefer due to the aspect ratio. Is this size even necessary (from a 4X5 shooter's standpoint) to move up to when a 4X5 shooter can simply crop to something like 3.5X5 and achieve a similar ratio?

Curious about the various approaches people take on when shooting sizes smaller than 8X10 in order to achieve the aspect ratio desired.

[Struan Gray]

I crop 4x5 to a square. I usually scan the whole neg and fine-tune the crop in Photoshop. That way I can save a proof that shows me the entire piece of film, and I can pixel-peep the crop to look for distractions near the edge.

Because I crop square I've not bothered very much with the 5x7 conversion I have, because the extra inch on the short side doesn't seem worth the (admittedly small) bulk and weight increase.

[Jan Nieuwenhuysen]

Take 5X7 format for a moment which many prefer due to the aspect ratio. Is this size even necessary (from a 4X5 shooter's standpoint) to move up to when a 4X5 shooter can simply crop to something like 3.5X5 and achieve a similar ratio?

35 mm will give you about the same aspect ratio as 5x7, but can be cropped to simulate 8x10. You can either crop in photoshop or print the whole negative and crop with a pair of scissors later at a convenient moment. For most people this happens around the time they get their divorce.

The use of 35 mm gear will also save you a lot of bulk and weight when taking the photo.

[Bruce Watson]

I don't believe in letting the camera format interfere with my photography. The camera works for me; I don't work for the camera.

I use a 5x4 camera for everything. But I see different aspect ratio scenes in the field. So I visualize what I want and make sure that I get it all on the film. Then I drum scan the film and crop the scan file to reflect my vision for that scene. I use a range of aspect ratios from square (4x4) to pano (5x2), or 1:1 out to 2.5:1.

That said, I do (or did) feel the "pull" that the ground glass exerts -- that desire to compose to the dimensions the ground glass shows you. It used to take some effort to exert my compositional will and override the automatic boundaries of the ground glass. Nothing a little practice won't cure however.

And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with picking a camera for it's aspect ratio and never using any other aspect ratio. Plenty of master photographers do/did just that. I'm just sayin' that's not the way I work.

[Louie Powell]

The product is the print; the film/camera are tools to get to that product.

So for me, the image determines the format of the final print. If that means cropping a 4x5 negative to make a 5x13 panoramic, or a circular print cropped from a 2 1/4 square negative, so be it.

[Kirk Gittings]

There is some visual discipline to previsualizing the final aspect ratio as you shoot so as to maximize the amount of negative used, but this should not be a straight jacket when printing. Cropping a 4x5 to 5x7 ratio gives you a significantly smaller negative area to work from and depending on the size of the print may suffer on comparison in terms of grain etc.

[Brian Ellis]

I'm with Bruce and Louie, I care about the print, not about using all of the negative or always keeping the same aspect ratio as the negative. So I crop in whatever way will produce the print that I want. Since I do all printing through Photoshop I do all cropping in Photoshop. It's quite simple to use the crop tool to play around with different crops. I like to add a black area surrounding the crop, eliminate the tool bars, and center the crop to make it easier to see exactly what the cropped print will look like. But if you want to crop to a particular size just press the letter "C" and add the desired width and height in the Options bar on the left.