Following the link posted by Liz, I came across another short article
(blogpost?) on about.com written by her,
http://photography.about.com/od/developingandprinting/qt/ImageFormats.htm
I liked the subject: I thought it was the first time that I've seen
somebody discussing different aspect ratios of the prints of different
standard sizes and the planning needed for that.
I've discussed briefly a related question earlier here, on PDML, in some
comments that I personally tend to favor two aspect ratios : 2:3 and 1:1
(aka 6x6 :-) ). And these are the most common sizes that I tend to post
to the web. In the past, when I was ordering prints at the labs,
I usually ordered prints in those ratios (4"x6", 10cmx15cm, 20cm x 30 cm,
8"x12", etc.), and then it was sometimes harder to find a premanufactured
(read: inexpensive) frame for 8"x12", as 8"x10" were more popular.
Once I started printing my own photos with Epson R2880, I found that
it is harder to do 8"x12" prints, as the paper usually doesn't
come in that size. So, every so often, I am trying to fit my 2:3 photo
to 8"x10" or 8.5"x11" ("Letter") formats.
The same problem was (and is) occuring with 5"x7" (aka 13cmx18cm) prints,
- but at least it is much closer to the 2:3 ratio, so it is not as
difficult to do the crop.
After doing a search, I found that there were some people complaining
about this issue earlier, e.g. here:
http://forums.popphoto.com/showthread.php?279310-standard-photo-print-sizes
I thought I'd share these with the PDMLers.
Also, I hope Liz won't be too mad at me for criticizing her posting.
I realize that the audience of about.com is mostly non-technical,
but still ...
First of all, I was surprised not seeing 8"x12" and 3.5"x5" among the
"standard print sizes".
Second, the "squarest" ratio is 1:1! And that's been on the market for
ages (albeit it's becoming less frequent, and may one day die).
Third, the "multiplication factor" and the "ratio" (in the particular
order of sides) are the same thing. So, the sentence "It is often easier
to think in terms of the length multiplication factors instead of the
actual ratios." sounds weird. What it actually says is "it is easier to use
decimal numbers (decimal fractions) then [non-decimal] fractions."
Fourth, I don't understand why 3.5:2.5 ratio is chosen for 5x7 prints
(except that the size 3.5"x2.5" is also considered to be one of the
standard, - "wallet", sizes).
It's a bit weird to translate a ratio of simple numbers to a ratio of decimal
non-intengers...
I also would challenge this statement:
"Many cameras today record photographs in roughly a 3:2 ratio. This
means that the long side is 1.5 times as long as the short side. This is
the reason 4x6 has become a popular print size."
I believe the reason (or to be exact, one of the main reasons) why 4x6
has become a popular print size is that the negative size on the 35mm
film was 24x36mm, which has the same aspect ratio.
More over, most sensor sizes (except those of DSLRs) are 4:3:
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0210/02100402sensorsizes.asp .
Cheers,
Igor
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