# lightroom 5  cropping for prints.



## dannylightning (Oct 12, 2014)

I want to have some photos printed and put in a 11X14 frame.     when i put in a 11x14 crop ratio in light room the image on my screen is showing 7.5 inches tall and 10 inches wide and this does not seem correct.

it seems like it should show up on the screen at 7 inches tall and 10 inches wide, it seems like the image should be 3 inches wider than it is tall.  so I am a bit confused here because this image is only 2.5 inches wider than it is tall on my screen and that does not seem like it would print out to the size I want correctly.     maybe you cant go by what is on the screen.

I really know nothing about cropping for printing.  any help would be appreciated.


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## KmH (Oct 12, 2014)

14 / 11 = 1.2727. The long side is 1.2727x longer than the short side.

10 / 7.5 = 1.33

10 / 1.2727 = 7.85 inches

So a 10 inch wide image has to have a short side of 7.85 inches to be the same aspect ratio as an 11x14.

Once you have the aspect ratio where you want it the size of a print is determined by the print resolution (ppi or pixels per inch) and image resolution (how many pixels wide and high).

pixels / ppi = inches
pixels / inches = ppi
inches x ppi = pixels

Your D5300 makes photos that are 6000 x 4000 px, 3:2 aspect ratio - the long side is 1.5x longer than the short side.

4000 / 1,2727 = 5091 px
6000 - 5091 = 909 pixels that need to be cropped from the long side of a 6000 x 4000 photo to get to the same aspect ration an 11x14 has.


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## dannylightning (Oct 12, 2014)

well this seems nice and confusing.   light room only lets me choose or make a custom aspect ratio.   such as 8x10, 4x8,  ect.   its not letting me choose pixels or  something like 3:2


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## dannylightning (Oct 12, 2014)

they just cant make this easy can they,  I have been reading thing after thing after thing after thing for the last few hours and well,  I have nothing.   this is by far the most frustrating thing ever.

light room gives me the option to type in  a number x a number which obviously is not what I though it was.  going by that setting that it gives me I have absolutely no clue in the world what number to use to get the size print I want,  I cant find anything that actually explains this or if I did I guess I must not have understood it in the slightest.

I did find a chart saying if you want this size print resize to this amount of pixels,  well that is awesome except for the fact there is not a option to crop to the amount of pixels I want in light room. at this point I am just about the say screw it and forget the whole thing.  heck when I am in the develop menu in light room I cant even see how many pixels by how many pixels the image is or anything like that that is going to help me get it to the size I need.


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## CameraClicker (Oct 12, 2014)

It's been a while since I looked at Lightroom.  I don't use it.  Photoshop lets you crop, and the crop tool will let you enter "11 in" and "14 in" in the height and width boxes, then 300 in the resolution box.  Draw the rectangle and you are done.  I don't know if that will work with Lightroom.


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## dannylightning (Oct 12, 2014)

I can move the crop box manually to any size i want but all it says is custom where it tells me the aspect of the crop..    now that you mentiond that I decided to try something. I just took a tape measure and made the image on my screen roughly 8 inches by 11 inches,  well as close as i could get with out actually touching the tape to my screen and it now says the aspect ratio of the crop is 4x3 for the aspect ratio.  

I guess if you manually move the crop box to a size that it recolonizes as a aspect ration it shows you the ratio,  if you move it to a size it does not recognize as a actual ratio it just tells you custom.

I am guessing if I export that image with that crop and send it to a lab it will be the correct size for 11x14 prints at least I hope lol..


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## KmH (Oct 12, 2014)

In LR's Develop module select the Crop tool, then click on the arrows just to the left of the lock.
Then click on *Enter Custom*.
Where is says Aspect Ratio you will enter the width first. So if the photo is a landscape/horizontal - enter 14 x 11 (or 1.2727 x 1). If it is portrait/vertical enter 11 x 14 (or 1 x 1.2727).


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## dannylightning (Oct 12, 2014)

I did that originally  and I entered 11x14 and than I entered  14X11  either way i enter it it tells me I have a 11x14 ratio.

i just tried the 1.2727x1 and its exactly the same as 11x14 and its giving me images that look like this.   definitely does not seem correct for a 11x14 print.  maybe it is but it does not exactly look that way.   i just cropped one really quick and exported so you could see what I am talking about.


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## CameraClicker (Oct 12, 2014)

It's the right shape.  At 300 PPI, it should be 4200 px (w) by 3300 px (h)


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## Scatterbrained (Oct 12, 2014)

It's really simple.  Pick the aspect ratio you want to use.  Crop to that ratio. Done.   The actual size that you can print will then be determined by how many pixels you have left (actual resolution) and what pixel density you choose to print at (120ppi vs. 240 ppi vs 300ppi).


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## dannylightning (Oct 12, 2014)

It seems like it should be a bit wider to me.

I think that is close to 5000x I think just under 4000 .  I just got to work so I am not at home look at the pixels of the image right now but it was something like that.

I appreciate everyone's help.  Thanks.


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## dannylightning (Oct 13, 2014)

well it looks like 4x3 and 11x14 aspect ratio will both work for a 11x14 print without any additional cropping needed on the labs website.  I also uploaded a photo with a few different aspect ratios and I chose a 11x14 print, they were outside of the box meaning part of the photo would need cropped to work with that size print.  

It looks like you can use either a 4x3 or 11x14 crop in light room to get 11x14 prints.


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## lacogada (Oct 15, 2014)

Tested an image from my D5200 which has the same resolution as the D5300.

In Lightroom I entered the ratio given by KmH of 1.0 to 1.2727.
Lightroom listed the 1.2727 as 1.273.

In the export dialog, image resize, I input 11 in wide 14 in high and 300 ppi.

Exported and opened in PS.

Image size :

3299 ppi
4200 ppi

10.997 inches
14.00  inches

300 ppi


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## KmH (Oct 15, 2014)

dannylightning said:


> well it looks like 4x3 and 11x14 aspect ratio will both work for a 11x14 print without any additional cropping needed on the labs website.  I also uploaded a photo with a few different aspect ratios and I chose a 11x14 print, they were outside of the box meaning part of the photo would need cropped to work with that size print.
> 
> It looks like you can use either a 4x3 or 11x14 crop in light room to get 11x14 prints.


4 / 3 = 1.333
14 / 11 = 1.2727 (or rounded 1.273)
They are different, but quite close, aspect ratios.

A few pixels from the long side of a 4:3 aspect ratio crop won't be there on a 11x14 print.
11x14 is a rather oddball print size.
Note: Most P&S cameras have a 4:3 aspect ratio image sensor.


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## dannylightning (Oct 16, 2014)

thanks for all the good info KmH  it has definitely helped 

Locogada, on lightroom 5  it does give me a export setting for pixels x pixels but not any of that other stuff,  when I enter that in they do not end up being that amount of pixels.  I did some reading about that and they were all saying that export setting in version 5 means nothing.


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## lacogada (Oct 19, 2014)

dannylightning said:


> when I enter that in they do not end up being that amount of pixels.  I did some reading about that and they were all saying that export setting in version 5 means nothing.



I'm using LR5.

What works for me is setting the custom ratio in the crop menu, then also inputting the dimensions in the export resize dialog.






PS : I input the numbers backwards for this example. They should have been  11 in then 14 in, to match the ratio showing in the custom box.


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