I got a n00b question. You know when you take a photograph and start cropping it etc. But then you want to print it. I know there are certain sizes that are standard in print (e.g. this thread title "16x20"). My question is: is there a way in a photo editing software (LR, PS, Aperture) to make this a standard? Like are there templates we should be cropping to etc? Sorry if i'm not too clear.
You can use the crop tool. Its designed for this purpose and allows you to input the crop size in pixels or inches.
Thanks guys. So I guess what people usually do is crop them to the same ratios so that when we take it to the processing people all we do is choose the correct ratio and print them all like that?
You crop the aspect ratio, but the actual size you print id dependent on the pixel count and the dpi.
I usually crop to the size I want and at the same time set the dpi to 300 in most cases. Might not need to be that high, but the print shop I send mine to can print a little higher than 300dpi so I'm using as much of it as I can.
I usually just crop wherever I need to and just worry about size later. So if I'm printing 16X20 the image may be 15.5X20 or 16X19.5, I guess I don't really crop with print size in mind though.