"Your very best steak" (rant re: frame aspect ratio)

[jferrari]

Here's what I want you to do:

• Purchase, prepare and grill your very best steak just the way you like it.
• With a sharp knife remove a little less than 20% of the steak.
• Throw the piece of steak you just cut off into the trash bin.
• Exclaim: "This is required to conform to industry standards!"
• Further exclaim: "It has been this way for decades, therefore it must be good!"

In case you haven't figured it out yet, last week I went to a couple of big-box stores in search of a 16 x 24 ready-made frame...

Long story short: I bought a thousand lineal feet of wood molding and a chopper. (Morso not Harley)

[aaronchan]

well, minority vs mass market
sorry but this is how the world do business

not trying to piss your off, i had your problem before
but end up with a local framer


aaron

[jferrari]

That's my beef, Aaron. (pun intended) The 3:2 aspect ratio that most digital cameras use has been around for quite a while now but the frame industry has yet to accommodate except for the all-to-common 4 by 6. No problem finding a 5 by 7 or 8 by 10 or 11 by 14 which all require that you crop your image. What if I don't want my image cropped? I guess my rant is that the frame industry needs to accept the "new" format and perhaps retire some of the old stuff.    - Jim

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

That's my beef, Aaron. (pun intended) The 3:2 aspect ratio that most digital cameras use has been around for quite a while now but the frame industry has yet to accommodate except for the all-to-common 4 by 6. No problem finding a 5 by 7 or 8 by 10 or 11 by 14 which all require that you crop your image. What if I don't want my image cropped? I guess my rant is that the frame industry needs to accept the "new" format and perhaps retire some of the old stuff.

Hi Jim,

How about using a matte and a larger frame. The only downside (besides cost) is that the top/bottom versus left/right borders are of different height/width around the image, but the image will be better separated from the background/surroundings. You could even go as far as printing a faux-border on a papersize that matches a frame size, that way your actual image crop dimensions can be arbitrary.

Cheers,
Bart

P.S. Although it would be a defeat, you could also consider a 'liquid' rescaling (Seam carving) technique to make things fit when you upsample for the native output PPI. Just to have an alternative.

[jjj]

Not just frames that are stupid sizes, the 10x8, 16x20 aspect ratios of paper for darkrooms were throwbacks to plate cameras and were a complete PITA when printing from the standard 35mm film and didn't even fit medium format either, which was mostly 6x6.  Then digital printing and photography came along and gave us A sizing which is fine for documents, but again doesn't fit the 3:2 aspect ratio of the now common 4:3 of small cameras.
Not a problem if you are buying cheap paper for documents, but a bit dumb when producing high quality paper for printing photographs and it's a ratio that doesn't really fit any camera.

[jjj]

well, minority vs mass market
sorry but this is how the world do business

Except the mass market uses cameras that are different ratios to the frames that are on offer. As I referenced above this is not a recent issue, as papers and frames to fit the camera people actually use have been out of step for probably 50+ years.

[Ernst Dinkla]

It all depends.

Suppose we get inkjet papers and frames that snug fit the digital images with 3/2 and 4/3 aspect ratios, the most common ones. Any matte or white border around that aspect ratio shifts the aspect ratio more to the 1/1 ratio or square. The more when wide borders are used. So when we like to have a 3/2 aspect ratio image with a border fit in a frame you more likely end with a 4/3 aspect ratio frame if not a 5/4 aspect ratio frame. It is worse for 4/3 images, 5/4 frames are even less common. Not to mention crops.

There is a tale that 3/2 aspect ratio images fit better on inkjet paper A format sheets. They do when you have certain sized white borders within that sheet too and keep the image symmetric while dealing with the wider trailing edge print margin. Usually not that easy. See an older thread:
http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/40714114

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
November 2014 update, 680+ inkjet media white spectral plots

[ripgriffith]

The only downside (besides cost) is that the top/bottom versus left/right borders are of different height/width around the image

As they should be, we were emphatically taught in art school, with the bottom border being larger than the the sides and top.  IIRC,This "bottom-weighting" concept goes back to the Renaissance.  And by using bottom-weighting, the sides and top can accommodate whatever proportions the print has, with  the  bottom border adjusted to fit.

[jferrari]

Hi Jim,

How about using a matte and a larger frame. The only downside (besides cost) is that the top/bottom versus left/right borders are of different height/width around the image, but the image will be better separated from the background/surroundings. You could even go as far as printing a faux-border on a papersize that matches a frame size, that way your actual image crop dimensions can be arbitrary.

Cheers,
Bart

P.S. Although it would be a defeat, you could also consider a 'liquid' rescaling (Seam carving) technique to make things fit when you upsample for the native output PPI. Just to have an alternative.

Hi Bart, the issue is not finding a work-around. I'm a canvas printer, meaning that I do not need glass and I do not need a mat. I just want to find (some of my clients and customers too) a ready-made frame that allows prints to be displayed without cropping. Frame manufacturers are living in the "dark" ages of aspect ratios and I find it irksome. Hence the rant...    - Jim

[Pic One]

just google shop for 16x24 poster frames..  they're really not that hard to find.
Otherwise, if it's a common size you need just order in bulk from an outfit like framedestination.com

[jferrari]

just google shop for 16x24 poster frames..  they're really not that hard to find.
Otherwise, if it's a common size you need just order in bulk from an outfit like framedestination.com

I sell canvas 8 x 12's, ready-to-frame, dry-mounted to MightyCore to fill a need at a certain price-point and the customer will ask where to get an inexpensive frame. Can't send them to Wally's World or the ilk because they don't have such a product. See original rant...     - Jim

[jjj]

As they should be, we were emphatically taught in art school, with the bottom border being larger than the the sides and top.  IIRC,This "bottom-weighting" concept goes back to the Renaissance.  And by using bottom-weighting, the sides and top can accommodate whatever proportions the print has, with  the  bottom border adjusted to fit.

Very few framers know about bottom weighting and like to place everything in centre. Shudder!
However it's not as flexible as you say as even with doing that, the frame proportions still may not suit the image.

[davidh202]

 Most "standard" frame aspect ratios were designed to accommodate painting papers and canvas sizes not just photographs. It was a very long time before even Kodak decided to print 8x12 from 35 mm negs and slides so as to not arbitrarily  crop the images to the  8x10 "standard"and 8x12 frames became available. 
Bottom weighting is very well known in the framing industry but is often misused. It is very appropriate to bottom weight an image when the subject of the image is in the lower portions of the image and bottom weighting helps to give a better view of the subject so it appears more balanced in the framing. The opposite is quite unbalanced with a bottom weighted mat!

[Pic One]

I sell canvas 8 x 12's, ready-to-frame, dry-mounted to MightyCore to fill a need at a certain price-point and the customer will ask where to get an inexpensive frame. Can't send them to Wally's World or the ilk because they don't have such a product. See original rant...     - Jim

So you're not looking for 16x24 frame size..  8x12 now?   Quick search on Amazon yields many choices.  I realize maybe not as well known as Wally's World (is that a real store?) 

[jferrari]

So you're not looking for 16x24 frame size..  8x12 now?   Quick search on Amazon yields many choices.  I realize maybe not as well known as Wally's World (is that a real store?) 

16 x 24, 8 x 12  I'm pretty sure you can do the math using the now standard 3:2 aspect ratio as opposed to the out-dated 4:5. Original rant still applies. For those of you that don't know WalMart is sometimes referred to as Wally's World, I did not make that up.

[BobShaw]

I'm not really sure what the question is or even if there is a question.

I print and frame my images. Seldom do they not need cropping. 3 x 2 a is pretty useless format for most things.
No print should be without a mat board, so the frame size is largely irrelevant. I make my frames to fit the mat. Kmart frames are for Kmart prints.

I used to leave a larger border at the bottom, and you need to if the picture has a plaque. Other than that the customers don't like it. They want it symmetrical. So do I because it is much easier cheaper and faster to cut a mat if the borders are all the same.

In pretty much every place other than the US we use International size paper like A4, A3 etc. These fit well into standard frames which for some reason are in inches. Most times I use roll paper anyway and just cut it whatever size I want.

Bottom line is that frame sizes, paper sizes and sensor ratios aren't going to change. Move forward.