# Size of watermark??



## stang96mj

What size do you all make your watermarks? Also when cropping should i do it the 16x9 or 8x10 or does it matter? Thanks in advance


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## NateWagner

For cropping, I would suggest staying consistent. I typically leave mine at 4x6, but you could do 4x5 if you wanted to. I probably wouldn't suggest the 16x9 as it's relatively pointless for prints (things never get printed at that size). 

For watermarks, whatever size you want to do. Mine are a set size, but I just did it that way cause I liked how it looks. The thing about watermarks is why you do them. If you are posting here because you want comments and critique I probably wouldn't watermark them, or if I did it would be a small watermark.


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## stang96mj

NateWagner said:


> For cropping, I would suggest staying consistent. I typically leave mine at 4x6, but you could do 4x5 if you wanted to. I probably wouldn't suggest the 16x9 as it's relatively pointless for prints (things never get printed at that size).
> 
> For watermarks, whatever size you want to do. Mine are a set size, but I just did it that way cause I liked how it looks. The thing about watermarks is why you do them. If you are posting here because you want comments and critique I probably wouldn't watermark them, or if I did it would be a small watermark.


 The watermark is going on the purchased ones.
Also by doing them in 4x6 they can be printed in 8x10 right? I want to print them in 8x10 or less.


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## NateWagner

4x6 is the crop ratio, thus a 4x6 can be cropped to 8x12, 16x24 and 20x30 without being cropped. 

A 4x6 can be printed as an 8x10, but part of it will need to be cropped in order to fit.

Personally, I wouldn't watermark an image (I'm thinking of how Olan Mills does it) that I'm selling like that, it can be distracting, and it also needs to be a very good logo if you're going to do that (IMHO). 

That being said if you are going to watermark it, there's no set guidelines on size, I would probably have it be relatively small, but that's just my opinion. You can check my blog if you want to see an example of what I have for a logo, but I wouldn't sell them with the logo I have on there. It's too big for that.


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## AliasPros

in watermarks, I do a small clean one for my clients in the bottom corner on proofs I go much larger but depends what your water mark looks like? Lets have a looksy?


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## stang96mj

NateWagner said:


> 4x6 is the crop ratio, thus a 4x6 can be cropped to 8x12, 16x24 and 20x30 without being cropped.
> 
> A 4x6 can be printed as an 8x10, but part of it will need to be cropped in order to fit.
> 
> Personally, I wouldn't watermark an image (I'm thinking of how Olan Mills does it) that I'm selling like that, it can be distracting, and it also needs to be a very good logo if you're going to do that (IMHO).
> 
> That being said if you are going to watermark it, there's no set guidelines on size, I would probably have it be relatively small, but that's just my opinion. You can check my blog if you want to see an example of what I have for a logo, but I wouldn't sell them with the logo I have on there. It's too big for that.


 ok, so the ones i have cropped with the 16x9 can i leave them or do i need to redo them all with the 4x6? They willbe printing some in 8x10 also.


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## NateWagner

I'm a little confused what you're talking about. If you have them at 16x9 you can just crop it to whatever ratio you need for printing. There is no need to crop it to 4x6 and then crop it to 8x10 (4x5).


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## KmH

A 4x6 has a 3:2 aspect ratio. An 8x10 has a 5:4 aspect ratio.

Most dSLR's have a native aspect ratio of 3:2.

So as an example, to get an 8x10 (5:4) from a native 8x12 (3:2) image you'll have to crop 1 inch off of each side.


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## stang96mj

NateWagner said:


> I'm a little confused what you're talking about. If you have them at 16x9 you can just crop it to whatever ratio you need for printing. There is no need to crop it to 4x6 and then crop it to 8x10 (4x5).


 I am confused too...LOL OK So I took some pictures. Now I am cropping them BUT I am wanting to know what size to crop them with in my windows photo gallery so that when they print them there isn't any more of the picture that will be cut off. Know what I mean? Then I go to Photoshop and do the rest of the editing.


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## KmH

stang96mj said:


> NateWagner said:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm a little confused what you're talking about. If you have them at 16x9 you can just crop it to whatever ratio you need for printing. There is no need to crop it to 4x6 and then crop it to 8x10 (4x5).
> 
> 
> 
> I am confused too...LOL OK So I took some pictures. Now I am cropping them BUT I am wanting to know what size to crop them with in my windows photo gallery so that when they print them there isn't any more of the picture that will be cut off. Know what I mean? Then I go to Photoshop and do the rest of the editing.
Click to expand...

Photoshop gives you many more options for cropping than wpg does.

I updated my graphic to make it a bit clearer, I hope.


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## NateWagner

Right, all you need to do is decide what size (ratio) you will print them at, and then crop them accordingly. If you want to print 8x10 then crop as an 8x10 (or 4x5 ratio I'm not sure what wpg calls it).


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## mostly sunny

Lets see it.. Well tell you if it oversized.


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## stang96mj

mostly sunny said:


> Lets see it.. Well tell you if it oversized.


 I can't get them to load on here grrrrr...help


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## stang96mj

NateWagner said:


> Right, all you need to do is decide what size (ratio) you will print them at, and then crop them accordingly. If you want to print 8x10 then crop as an 8x10 (or 4x5 ratio I'm not sure what wpg calls it).


 So if I have cropped them with say 8x10 what will it look like if they print them in 4x6 and vice versa?? Sorry for SOOOO many questions...lol Just trying to get it through my head


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## mostly sunny

stang96mj said:


> mostly sunny said:
> 
> 
> 
> Lets see it.. Well tell you if it oversized.
> 
> 
> 
> I can't get them to load on here grrrrr...help
Click to expand...


I hate when that happens.:x


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## stang96mj

KmH said:


> stang96mj said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> NateWagner said:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm a little confused what you're talking about. If you have them at 16x9 you can just crop it to whatever ratio you need for printing. There is no need to crop it to 4x6 and then crop it to 8x10 (4x5).
> 
> 
> 
> I am confused too...LOL OK So I took some pictures. Now I am cropping them BUT I am wanting to know what size to crop them with in my windows photo gallery so that when they print them there isn't any more of the picture that will be cut off. Know what I mean? Then I go to Photoshop and do the rest of the editing.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Photoshop gives you many more options for cropping than wpg does.
> 
> I updated my graphic to make it a bit clearer, I hope.
Click to expand...

 This is a way silly question...lol What is the fastest way to edit pictures and what if you have a ton, how do you weed through so many awesome pics...lol ; )


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## mostly sunny

I may be the worst person to answer.. but here is my 2 cents.

I only edit the ones that need editing.


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## stang96mj

mostly sunny said:


> I may be the worst person to answer.. but here is my 2 cents.
> 
> I only edit the ones that need editing.


 Well there are a lot that need to be cropped.  LOL


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## mrmacedonian

stang96mj said:


> I am confused too...LOL OK So I took some pictures. Now I am cropping them BUT I am wanting to know what size to crop them with in my windows photo gallery so that when they print them there isn't any more of the picture that will be cut off. Know what I mean? Then I go to Photoshop and do the rest of the editing.



I think what you're getting at is that you want a ratio to crop your pictures that will work whatever you print them, that isn't possible. 

Since I build my own desktop computers, I am blessed with beaucoup hard drive space for cheap, so consider that since this practice is insanely consuming of hard drive space:

     What I do is have a place that the Canon EOS Utility automatically puts my RAW+JPEG, by date. I then open the RAW, get the settings as i want them and make a .TIFF at full resolution, and place them in a "TIFFs" folder. Then I open the .tiff in Photoshop, set the crop dimensions to 4x6, crop, 'Save As.." into a "4x6" folder inside that "TIFFs" location. i rinse and repeat for 5x7, and 8x10. Those three are the primary ones I print/post anywhere. This way, you'll have those three ratios ready at a moment's notice, and anything in between you can pop open the .tiff and crop when needed. realize this means you have the original RAW, JPEG then the TIFF you made and three more JPEGs, so as I said, it really eats the HDD.

More efficient would be to make that .tiff and refer to it so when you print you crop it on the spot. Also, i suggest using Photoshop to crop not Windows... click the crop tool then at the top you'll see three boxes: width, length and dpi. for example on a landscape you'd set to 6, 4, blank; for a portrait obviously 4,6,blank. i say leave dpi blank until you look into it, though i use 350.

I apologize if thats a lot of unnecessary info, but it works for me when people go "oh man i like those pics can you print me some?".. if they're friends i can pop open the 4x6 folder and pop them on a flash drive or print them. If its someone more.. for lack of a better word.. important or it'll be posted somewhere you can open up the 5x7 or 8x10 and then can print them, respectively

I think the "short answer" to your question is that its not possible, you have to alter the picture for each circumstance, sorry :-\


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## NateWagner

stang96mj said:


> NateWagner said:
> 
> 
> 
> Right, all you need to do is decide what size (ratio) you will print them at, and then crop them accordingly. If you want to print 8x10 then crop as an 8x10 (or 4x5 ratio I'm not sure what wpg calls it).
> 
> 
> 
> So if I have cropped them with say 8x10 what will it look like if they print them in 4x6 and vice versa?? Sorry for SOOOO many questions...lol Just trying to get it through my head
Click to expand...


KMH gave a pretty understandable image back there. I would go back and study it if you still have questions. 

That being said, if you have a 4x6 (which is a 2x3 ratio which means that one side of the image is 2 units long for every 3 units of the other examples of these sizes of images being, 6x9, 8x12, 16x24) and an 8x10 (basically 4 units long by 5 on the other, examples being, 4x5 8x10, 16x20). Ok, now if you have a 4x6 and were trying to fit it on to an 8x10 image, the 4x6 would convert to being an 8x12, you then have to crop 2 inches off of the long side to make it an 8x10. 

In other words, decide the images you want to print and crop them when you need to print them. What I typically do is leave all of my images in 2x3 (or 4x6 same thing) and then when I have people order them I crop them to whatever size they want. 

It is pointless, in my opinion to crop all of them to all the sizes, why bother with it, just leave them at one size and crop when necessary.


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## stang96mj

bump bump


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## NateWagner

why did you bump it? this topic has been well covered.


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## stang96mj

NateWagner said:


> why did you bump it? this topic has been well covered.


 because i asked another question


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## stang96mj

NateWagner said:


> why did you bump it? this topic has been well covered.


 nevermind i didn't see that last one


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## stang96mj

NateWagner said:


> stang96mj said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> NateWagner said:
> 
> 
> 
> Right, all you need to do is decide what size (ratio) you will print them at, and then crop them accordingly. If you want to print 8x10 then crop as an 8x10 (or 4x5 ratio I'm not sure what wpg calls it).
> 
> 
> 
> So if I have cropped them with say 8x10 what will it look like if they print them in 4x6 and vice versa?? Sorry for SOOOO many questions...lol Just trying to get it through my head
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> KMH gave a pretty understandable image back there. I would go back and study it if you still have questions.
> 
> That being said, if you have a 4x6 (which is a 2x3 ratio which means that one side of the image is 2 units long for every 3 units of the other examples of these sizes of images being, 6x9, 8x12, 16x24) and an 8x10 (basically 4 units long by 5 on the other, examples being, 4x5 8x10, 16x20). Ok, now if you have a 4x6 and were trying to fit it on to an 8x10 image, the 4x6 would convert to being an 8x12, you then have to crop 2 inches off of the long side to make it an 8x10.
> 
> In other words, decide the images you want to print and crop them when you need to print them. What I typically do is leave all of my images in 2x3 (or 4x6 same thing) and then when I have people order them I crop them to whatever size they want.
> 
> It is pointless, in my opinion to crop all of them to all the sizes, why bother with it, just leave them at one size and crop when necessary.
Click to expand...

 Ok, you said you when people order them you crop them. Well I put them all on a disc for them and let them take the disc and print what they want. So I just need to leave my watermark off and let them crop them how they want?


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## NateWagner

If you're going to put them on a disk, that's exactly what I would suggest. 

Anywhere they go to print images will have software for cropping the images. This is where it's typically a good idea to frame the subject somewhat loosely when taking the image so that when it comes time to crop you have some room to work with in the image.


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## FORCFED

stang96mj said:


> mostly sunny said:
> 
> 
> 
> Lets see it.. Well tell you if it oversized.
> 
> 
> 
> I can't get them to load on here grrrrr...help
Click to expand...

 
How are you trying to load these photos?

You need so sort of picture sharing site like Flickr or Photobucket to name a few. Upload them them add the IMG code into the thread that you want to post.


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## brandosh

stang96mj said:


> What size do you all make your watermarks? Also when cropping should i do it the 16x9 or 8x10 or does it matter? Thanks in advance



Hi Stang- I see you're watermarking your photos and you're looking for a "standard size." It's really up to you as there is no standard size. You might find it interesting to experiment with watermark sizing options on LogoMerge.com - Merge a logo with your video to create a watermark!.

The site allows you to place a watermark on your photo via the web. It gives you re-sizing options and opacity controls... it's a very cool site! 

-B


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