THE LITTLE PRINT STUDIO / FIELD NOTES

Why does an 8 × 10 print crop my photo?

Your camera image and the paper may have different proportions. A 6000 × 4000 photo has a 3:2 aspect ratio. An 8 × 10 print has a 4:5 ratio, or 5:4 when turned horizontally. Enlarging the picture does not change its shape.

A concrete example

Place that 6000 × 4000 image on a horizontal 10 × 8 inch sheet. To fill the sheet, the 4000-pixel height must cover 8 inches. That gives 500 PPI. At this scale, only 5000 pixels of the original width fit on the paper. The remaining 1000 pixels are cropped: 500 on each edge with a centered crop.

Three ways to keep the composition

• Choose paper with the same ratio: a horizontal 12 × 8 print matches a 3:2 image.
• Use Fit to keep the whole photo. On 10 × 8 paper, the image becomes 10 × 6.67 inches, with about 0.67 inches of border above and below.
• Use Fill and move the crop position to preserve a face or another important detail.

Before you order

Confirm whether your print lab uses “fill,” “fit,” or automatic cropping. An image preview here is a geometric planning aid; a printer can apply additional trimming or borderless enlargement. Keep important subjects away from the edges and review the lab’s final preview.