Photo Dimensions Dementia

[Sean]

I am not very knowledgeable about photos so please forgive my ignorance. I
have received several photos from a professional photographer who uses a
MAC. The original DVD that they were on apparently only works on a
MAC(+ACMAJAAjACIAJA-). So he had to burn them onto a CDs for me. I was able to access
them and put them on my hard drive. The photos were taken at high
resolution via a Canon EOS rebel or something like that. I was very pleased
to see lots of info about the photos in Windows Explorer. I right clicked
and there are tons of variables you can add. One very Useful variable was
+ACI-Picture taken date+ACI- So I could sort them in the order they were taken very
good for searching for photos of an event when you have 700 pictures or so.
The variable that I really needed is the dimensions in Inches or
Centimeters. I added dimensions but it is in Pixels. So I called the
photographer and asked him about it. He said that the dimensions in pixels
is useless for me because he has cropped them into 8x10 and 5x7. He went on
about ratios and explained everything must be cropped. I thought I
understood that the ratio of an 8x10 is different than 5x7 so it seemed to
make sense you would lose either length or width. So he told me to open
Photoshop. I don't have it and I don't want it on my machine. So he told
me to open my photo software. After a little digging I found that Microsoft
photo editor will tell me the size in inches if I right click the photo and
choose properties. However I couldn't find a way to crop by inches for
example 5x7. Great now I can open 750 photos one by one and sort them. So
the photographer has already formatted the images into 8x10 and 5x7. I am
sending the photos to family in Asia and the photo sizes are different. He
quickly informed me that they will have to crop the already cropped photos
which can present problems. I told him that I wanted the untouched
originals but he says that his company policy forbids it. He told me to
tell him which ones I need and he will crop the originals for me to Asian
specs. I am going to send him an email with the entire list. I think I am
on the right track but I often miss the big picture so if someone in the
know is sitting back shaking their head in disgust, please toss a morsel my
way. I certainly would do the same provided the chance presented itself.
My Questions are:


Question A Is there a way to prepare-(Crop or resize or whatever I need to
do+AFsAKg-Scratching head+ACoAXQ-) -photos for printing at various sizes built into XP?

Question B Is there a way to show dimensions of pictures in Inches rather
than pixels in Windows Explorer?

Question C Does this make any sense at all, Am I missing something?

 

[Yves Alarie]

Question A: No, not with Explorer.
However, this is easy to do with the following free software:
www.faststone.org
You open the photo and crop to the size you want.
Be careful when you crop. You need to select the print size you want and
then maintain the aspect ratio of the crop for the size you selected.
So, you open a 7 x 5 or 10 x 8 and you want 6 x 4.
Faststone will add a 6 x 4 aspect ratio rectangle over your image, you can
move this rectangle over the image by clicking your mouse inside the
rectangle and move the rectangle to cover the portion of the image you want
to keep. If you want to reduce the size of the cropping rectangle, you click
on one of the corners of the rectangle and drag within. Never click on any
of the sides of the rectangle and drag within because the 6 x 4 aspect ratio
will now be lost. After you are done, save the file. Faststone will add the
letters "cr" at the end of the original file name and save the file in the
same folder as the original file. You can also add 6 x 4 after cr if you
wish.
Here is the deal. Your photographer can indeed crop them for you instead of
you doing it, just give him the size you need. But, look at the faststone
automatic rectangle crop when it opens over your image. Is it where you want
it? Or do you need to move this rectangle a little bit up or down to include
the most important part of what is in the 7 x 5 or 10 x 8 image.
Your photographer would probably use software to batch process all the files
into the print size you want, without ever looking at any image to make sure
that the crop is at the right place. Maybe not, this is something you will
have to think about and discuss with him.

Question B: No. Digital pictures have no dimension in inches, only in
pixels. However you can get around this.
Divide 7 by 5 and you get: 1.4
Divide 10 by 8 and you get: 1.25
Pixel dimensions are always given by width and height of the picture file.
So look at the pixel dimensions and divide the largest number by the smaller
number. If the answer is 1.4 this is a 7 x 5 fit. If it is 1.25, it is 10 x
8 fit.
If you want to sort them, open the folder. Set the Views to Details instead
of thumbnails. You will see a column heading "Dimensions". Click on this
column heading and XP will now sort by Dimensions instead of the default,
File name.
Your 10 x 8 will be listed first. It should be easy to differentiate the 10
x 8 from the 7 x 5.

Question C: Does this make sense, are you missing something?
The camera used by your photographer has a 3:2 aspect ratio. If you want a 6
x 4 print. There would be no cropping at all to do because it is a perfect
fit.
In preparing your photos he (or maybe she) decided to crop them, probably to
select the best portion of each photo. The most popular print size here are
6 x 4. 7 x 5 and 10 x 8. This may be different in Asia, but I would ask how
different is it? You may not need anything done to these files except
sorting them to find the 7 x 5 and the 10 x 8 and then have them printed in
Asia to sizes very close (very close aspect ratio as to what you have in
these files) and you would miss very little of the image in each photo.
The key here is don't think about print size in inches, think about aspect
ratio. A 10 x 8 will fit perfectly 5 x 4 or 20 x 16 but not 6 x 4.

I am not very knowledgeable about photos so please forgive my ignorance. I
have received several photos from a professional photographer who uses a
MAC. The original DVD that they were on apparently only works on a
MAC(#$#"$). So he had to burn them onto a CDs for me. I was able to access
them and put them on my hard drive. The photos were taken at high
resolution via a Canon EOS rebel or something like that. I was very pleased
to see lots of info about the photos in Windows Explorer. I right clicked
and there are tons of variables you can add. One very Useful variable was
"Picture taken date" So I could sort them in the order they were taken very
good for searching for photos of an event when you have 700 pictures or so.
The variable that I really needed is the dimensions in Inches or
Centimeters. I added dimensions but it is in Pixels. So I called the
photographer and asked him about it. He said that the dimensions in pixels
is useless for me because he has cropped them into 8x10 and 5x7. He went on
about ratios and explained everything must be cropped. I thought I
understood that the ratio of an 8x10 is different than 5x7 so it seemed to
make sense you would lose either length or width. So he told me to open
Photoshop. I don't have it and I don't want it on my machine. So he told
me to open my photo software. After a little digging I found that Microsoft
photo editor will tell me the size in inches if I right click the photo and
choose properties. However I couldn't find a way to crop by inches for
example 5x7. Great now I can open 750 photos one by one and sort them. So
the photographer has already formatted the images into 8x10 and 5x7. I am
sending the photos to family in Asia and the photo sizes are different. He
quickly informed me that they will have to crop the already cropped photos
which can present problems. I told him that I wanted the untouched
originals but he says that his company policy forbids it. He told me to
tell him which ones I need and he will crop the originals for me to Asian
specs. I am going to send him an email with the entire list. I think I am
on the right track but I often miss the big picture so if someone in the
know is sitting back shaking their head in disgust, please toss a morsel my
way. I certainly would do the same provided the chance presented itself.
My Questions are:


Question A Is there a way to prepare-(Crop or resize or whatever I need to
do[*Scratching head*]) -photos for printing at various sizes built into XP?

Question B Is there a way to show dimensions of pictures in Inches rather
than pixels in Windows Explorer?

Question C Does this make any sense at all, Am I missing something?