# Creating an 11x14 canvas in Lightroom



## lfoush (May 14, 2014)

I'm creating an 11x14 canvas in Lightroom, and i was wondering what I should set the export settings to. How should I resize the photo and what should I set the resolution to? Also, is it necessary to sharpen it?


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## KmH (May 14, 2014)

The aspect ratio of your original (Nikon D7000) is 3:2 and if your D7000 is set to it's default setting the image resolution is 4928 x 3264 pixels.
In other words the long side of the original is 1.5 times longer than the short side (3/2=1.5)
An 11x14 has an oddball aspect ratio that has the long side 1.27 times longer than the short size.

So to get from your original to 11x14 you are going to have to crop some from the long side of your original.

Next you need to consider the print resolution, or pixels-per-inch. Well look at that a bit later.

Have you allowed for the canvas wrap needed to attach the canvas to stretcher bars. The wrap dimensions vary from canvas printer to canvas printer.
If the canvas printer requires a 2" wrap you need your image to be 15 x 18 to allow for the wrap.

One of the ways people avoid losing image real estate is my mirroring the 2 inches (or what ever is needed) to allow for the wrap.

Assuming you have not yet cropped the 3:2 (1.5x) original to the 1.27x required for an 11x14 print we can do a little basic math to determine how much needs to be cropped.

As long as you used the D7000's default settings the short side of your original is 3264 pixels and assuming you don't want to lose any of that you will crop the long side of the original.
Here is the math 3264 px x 1.27 = 4145.28 px and 4928 px - 4145.28 px = 782.72 px that need to be cropped off the long side of the original. In round numbers call it 783 pixels.

So you need a cropped photo that is 4145 x 3284 pixels to have the right shape for an 11x14 canvas print that has edges mirrored for the wrap.
Some more math - 4145 px / 14 inches = 296 pixels per inch (ppi) which is more than enough print resolution for a canvas print. (Note: print resolution (ppi) and image resolution (4928 x 3264 pixels) are different things but together determine print size. Image resolution only applies to electronic display and for electronic display ppi is meaningless.)

Because a canvas has so much texture, resolution doe not have to be as high as for a matte or glossy print. By the same token, a canvas print can be sharpened more than a matte or glossy print, and a matte or glossy print can usually be sharpened more than an image that will be electronically displayed.
However, the bottom line on sharpening is the image quality and the image content (edge frequency), and that sharpening for print is best done as a 3 stage process - capture sharpen, local/artistic sharpen, output sharpen.

Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom (2nd Edition)


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## lfoush (May 15, 2014)

Is there a way to mirror the image in Lightroom? I don't have PS. Also another question...if I cropped my photo physically to an 11x14 before exporting it...how will cropping it by changing the pixel dimensions have an effect on it?


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## Big Mike (May 15, 2014)

No, you can't mirror the edges in Lightroom.  You might be able to do that in a free software like GIMP, but I honestly don't know anything about that program.  

But first, are you going for a gallery wrap canvas, or just a 'regular' canvas print/installation?  A regular canvas print (depends on the company/person doing it) will just have the image on the front of the frame.  The edges might be a solid color or left raw.  The idea being that you will put it into a frame.

A gallery wrap, on the other hand, is where the image wraps around the edges of the stretcher frame and is meant to be hung without a frame.  So if this is what you're looking for, you will need to consider the edges as mentioned by KmH.  It doesn't have to be mirrored, as long as you're OK having the edges of the picture, not show from the front.  






If you are printing/ordering an 11x14 (wrapped or flat), then you should crop to that ratio.  I don't think you can actually crop it by setting the pixel dimensions in the export dialog. When you set the pixel size & resolution at export, your concern should be that you have enough pixels for the size of print that you want.   KmH laid that out pretty well, and as he mentioned, you don't need as many pixels for canvas, as you do for photo paper....so you should be OK.


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## lambertpix (May 15, 2014)

I think this depends to some extent on whether you're printing and stretching the canvas yourself, or whether you're sending it to a service to do the framing.  Some of those services, for instance, will do mirroring for you -- this is an important service for them precisely be cause so few people have the desire & knowledge to mess with this themselves.  In other cases, you may want to just size your photo with an extra inch or so on all sides so that the image can wrap around the frame (stretched edge).  Obviously, this depends on you having cropped your image with plenty of "free" space around the subject -- another aspect that most people (including me) forget about until it's time to print the image.

Adoramapix actually has a pretty nice online tool that'll show you cropping models for stretched, mirrored, or colored edges -- live with your image so you can see whether you've got enough room around the edges for the wrapping, for instance.


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## KmH (May 15, 2014)

lfoush said:


> .how will cropping it by changing the pixel dimensions have an effect on it?


Cropping can only be done by cutting off and discarding pixels, which changes the pixel dimensions of the image.

Cutting off pixels reduces the image resolution. In your case the reduction in image resolution is minimal so print resolution isn't negatively affected.
With a heavy crop image resolution may be reduced so much that print resolution limits the print size.
A photo that has been heavily cropped so only 1400 x 1100 pixels remain can be printed as a 14x11 but the pixels per inch would only be 100 ppi.
If one wanted have print resolution of 200 ppi the biggest a 1400 x 1100 px photo could be printed would be 7" x 5.5".

Use these 3 basic math equations to determine how image resolution and print resolution will relate to prints you want to have made:
pixels / ppi = inches
pixels / inches = ppi
inches x ppi = pixels

Also - 11x14 is a vertical (portrait) framing orientation. If your image is a landscape photo it's likely in the horizontal frame orientation and would be a 14x11.
The convention is to always state the width first so the frame orientation is not ambiguous.


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