# Export dimension settings ignored or not possible?



## Doug B (Apr 10, 2015)

So, I'm trying to export a RAW landscape of which the starting dimensions are 4149x2704 cropped, to 2560x1440, so that I may use it as a desktop background. Why this is proving to be difficult, is beyond me. I've tried a multitude of things, and can't ever seem to get the exact dimensions I want. It always comes out as 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 2210x1440 instead. Any ideas as to why? This seems like it should be a no-brainer, but then..what do I know. 

Thanks! 

Doug


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## clee01l (Apr 10, 2015)

The Crop tool is is the Develop module. You can not crop on export, you can only *resize* The original image pixel dimensions have an aspect ratio of ~3:2 (1.534)  Your desired output aspect ratio is 16:9 (1.77) You need to crop a window out of the original image that has that aspect ratio of 16:9.  Then on Export, you can specify a resize to 2560x1440  or simply set the export settings for a long side of 2560px


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## Jimmsp (Apr 10, 2015)

Your original has a ratio of 1.5528/1
You want a ratio of 1.7777/1.
You are getting a ratio of 1.5347/1.

So you have to crop the original to the desired ratio, and then set the length or width to what you want upon export.

Are you doing this? 
Even then, you may not get the exact numbers because of round off error.

edit - just saw Clee's post that came in as I was writing mine.


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## Doug B (Apr 10, 2015)

Hu. Well.. I didn't think there'd be such math involved, honestly. Is this something that is native to all image re-sisizing tools, or Adobe, specifically? Also, if I pre-crop to fit 16:9, then naturally I lose parts of the image, which isn't a desired outcome at all.. Sorry, I'm not getting that. Maybe if it weren't almost 2 am, I'd fare better.. but I was looking for a more layman-esque answer, I suppose.


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 10, 2015)

Cletus has already explained the issue, but if you don't want to be "doing the math" then you don't have to. But what you do need to do is know the exact resolution of your monitor (which you do) AND you need to understand that you may need to crop your image to have the same aspect ratio as your monitor if you want the image to "fill the frame" on your screen. But if you don't like the fact that pre-cropping will cause you to lose parts of the image, then you have to accept the fact that you'll not be able to exactly fit your exported image into your monitor display. Lightroom will not squash or stretch an image in any way, so you either pre-crop to the exact screen resolution, or accept that you'll have black space left and right when the image is used as a desktop background.


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## Doug B (Apr 10, 2015)

" LR will not squash or stretch " I suppose that's where I thought the issue was. Why should light room care whether or not you want to do such things? Yeah, I get it...that's how the algorithm works and was made, but if one wants to force it to do such a thing why shouldn't they be able to? Especially when you can get much simpler programs to resize images as such.

Pixelmator does it, and that's what I'm using to "distort" my images, as it were. I just wish I didn't have to go through another program in order to do it is all.


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## Hal P Anderson (Apr 10, 2015)

Doug,

Probably less than one percent of photographers want to squash or stretch their photos, and to accommodate them would use resources that would be better used programming features that a wider segment of the potential customers want or need. You can probably add Pixelmator as an external editor and invoke it from Lightroom when needed.


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## clee01l (Apr 10, 2015)

Doug B said:


> " LR will not squash or stretch "...Pixelmator does it, and that's what I'm using to "distort" my images, as it were. I just wish I didn't have to go through another program in order to do it is all.


 There is a different between resize and reshape.  You want to reshape the image. LR does not do this.  Most photo processors will not do this unless you do it intentionally. In Photoshop you can use the Warp tool to stretch your image to fit a certain canvas aspect ratio.  Most people do not want their photos to look like they were taken in a "House of Mirrors".

Film camera were limited to the aspect ratio of the film. For 35mm SLR film cameras, that was 3:2. The first choice for photography was paper prints.  Paper came in sizes like 5X7, 8X10(4:5) & 3X5.  You could not bring an image from a 35mm film camera without either loosing part of the image or leaving some white margin on some edges of the paper.  Digital cameras have followed the same design rule as 35mm film camera and continued with a sensor size that approximates the 3:2 aspect ratio.  If you have been using computers long enough to remember CRT displays, then you should know that aspect ratio of the CRT was 4:3  An XGA video monitor gave you a screen that was 1024X768 pixels (a 4:3 aspect ratio)

Take a look at this chart:





To achieve any one of the aspect ratios listed, you either have to trim away part of the 3:2 image recorded by the sensor or leave a margin on the sides of the screen.   Most people do not want to see a distorted image.   Knowing that your target destination is going to be a 16:9 flatscreen computer monitor, you can compose your image to fit inside the 16:9 aspect ratio before you press the shutter. the chart above will show you how much margin to leave at the top, bottom, or both. to fit the HD (16:9) image inside the TV (3:2) sensor.


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## Modesto Vega (Apr 10, 2015)

I just read this post, the OP and all the replies. I think Cletus chart is brilliant, really nice. But I think it is possible that after the 2nd post the whole discussion has gone off a very interesting tangent.

My understanding is that the OP

1) Has a RAW 4149x2704 file, which is about 3:2
2) Has cropped the file in develop module to 2560x1440, which is 16:9
3) Has tried to export the cropped image as a JPEG and Lr has produced a 2210x1440 JPEG

If this is the case for Lr to have done this, 2560px has not been specified as the longest edge, as Cletus said on the second post. If it had, Lr should have produce a 2560x1440 JPEG; perhaps a few pixels out, but not that far out.

Now I am little tired after a long drive home, so you call tell me I misread the OP.

In any case, the aspect ratio discussion is brilliant.


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 10, 2015)

Sorry Modesto, you have misread. Doug cropped the image to arrive at the 4149x2704 position, then tried to export this specifying 2560x1440. Because they are different aspect ratios, Lightroom will get as near as it can (i.e. will get one edge correct, the other ends up at whatever it needs to be to maintain the images's aspect ratio), which results in the 2210x1440 export.


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## Modesto Vega (Apr 10, 2015)

Jim no apology needed, if that is what Doug is done the thread did not go of a tangent. The key point you are all trying to make summarises in one sentence, I think:

Lr is capable of upscaling - i.e., enlarging -and downscaling - i.e., reducing - but it always preserves the aspect ratio. It cannot alter the aspect ratio.

Incidentally, didn't Doug get too many pixels? I would have expected something in the region of 2,208 x 1440; 2,208.96 which means Lr has rounded up about 1.04 pixels on the long edge.


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 11, 2015)

My calculator made it 2209.52, so I think LR got it just right....


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## Modesto Vega (Apr 11, 2015)

Jim Wilde said:


> My calculator made it 2209.52, so I think LR got it just right....


The original aspect ratio was exactly 1.5343935, that times 1440 equals 2209.5266. So Lr has rounded ~ 0.5 pixel up, not a big deal. The dirrence between your calculation and mine is likely to the number of decimal points used for the original aspect ratio, on my first calculation I used 1.534.

This is a good example of why aspect ratios are expressed as 3:2, 16:9 and so on, with that format precission is not lost.


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## tspear (Apr 11, 2015)

One other point I would mention. The crop tool has a really nice feature where you can specify the aspect ratio.
This helps when targeting a specific output. Some of my images, I have created snapshots with alternate crop sizes/ratios for specific outputs. e.g. Monitor, print, web...

Tim


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## Doug B (Apr 14, 2015)

Very interesting stuff.. Thank you Clee0, for that chart. I had never really thought about pre cropping my composition to suit an LCD with an very specific aspect ratio.  Mostly because I'm doing something now, which I had never really done before.. which is to use a portrait shot as my login screen on my iMac. This would not be an issue with a landscape shot. I suppose. The photo I posted up above is not exactly the portrait I'm speaking of, but just the outcome of my evaluating other shots for the login screen, and is absolutely problematic due to the 16:9 ratio cutting off critical areas of the shot. So now, when I have a subject in mind for my iMac's login screen, I'll have to adjust my lcd to show that 16:9 ratio, and stand back further from the subject to fit everything in. No biggie. Just not used to doing that. 

For the record, I don't mind the distorted/squished look so much, since it's not mission critical. Just some cute photos of my now 1 year old nephew's face! But yeah.. I get it. 

Thanks everyone for the re-alignment. 

doug


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## Modesto Vega (Apr 14, 2015)

This a great thread but there is something in this thread I find very confusing: the concept of cropping for a display or for a print size. I don't understand it. Generally I crop before I do any other processing; I have one of 3 intentions when cropping:

1) change the aspect ratio of a photo, a square or letterbox format are 2 good examples
2) eliminate any bleeding space, intentional or not, I might have included on camera on a photo
3) eliminate a distracting feature that cannot be easily cloned out

Sometimes I crop after processing. I never crop for a print size, even if I know beforehand the size of the print. In fact, I have printed the same crop countless times in different sizes, comtact sheets and 40 by 50 centrimetres are 2 examples.

Any comments are very welcomed.


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## clee01l (Apr 14, 2015)

Modesto Vega said:


> This a great thread but there is something in this thread I find very confusing: the concept of cropping for a display or for a print size. I don't understand it. Generally I crop before I do any other processing; I have one of 3 intentions when cropping:
> 
> 1) change the aspect ratio of a photo, a square or letterbox format are 2 good examples
> 2) eliminate any bleeding space, intentional or not, I might have included on camera on a photo
> ...


The most common reason for cropping is to fit a particular paper size.  Most paper sizes do not conform to a neat 3:2 aspect ratio.  Most DSLR photo sensors are ~3:2.  If you want to print without borders on a standard paper size you need to crop either before you print or as you print by letting the paper size determine which parts of the image are outside of the page boundaries.  Letting the printer determine where the crop occurs does not always yield the best composition.  Hence, cropping a good composition from within the 3:2 image that uses the aspect ratio of the paper the image will be printed on will insure the best composition that fits the paper will be the one that gets printed.  Displays come in one or two common aspect ratios Modern flat screen LED/LCD are usually 16:9. Older CRTs were always 4:3 (SVGA).  If you want a desktop screen saver, then you usually want one that fits the aspect ratio of the screen.  The same rule applies if you are going to fill the screen, then you need to crop to the screen aspect ratio or fill the screen with only that portion of the image that fits inside the aspect ratio of the of the screen. 

If you are not bothered by having a white border on two sides of your print or a black border on two sides of your screensaver, then cropping is not critical.  If you are willing to pay for a custom frame or a custom matte, then you can print 3:2 and frame the full image that was taken by the camera.


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## Modesto Vega (Apr 15, 2015)

Other than the associated waste of paper I am not bother with having a white border around the image. Unless I am doing something special, I cut my own mattes and occasionally I do my own framing.

The main reason for the question is that I crop to change the aspect ratio and not tor re-size, I understand you also do this. There seems to be 2 implicit assumptions in this thread. The assumptions are more or less as follows:

1) If I want to make a 6016px × 4016px photo exactly fit on 12''x16'' paper at 300dpi, I need to re-size it to 4800px x 3600px, which is a 4:3 aspect ratio; I agree that if have enough pixels I can use a custom 4:3 aspect ratio crop; if there are not enough pixels it is another matter all together because it possible to create an enlarged derivative file with Lr and get very decent results.

Such a crop involves loosing 6,880,256px, *6 megapixels*, the whole sensor of my first digital camera, or 28.5% of the original photo. I leave bleeding edge on my photo but 28.5%, 6 mega pixels, is a lot of bleeding space. Is this really common practice with DSLRs with big sensors?

It works the same for any display on your chart but the number of pixels that need to be thrown away is higher.

2) One of my favourite aspect ratios is 1:1, square format; parts of the thread almost read as if using a square format is not a good idea because of all the amount of paper and screen lost in the process of rendering 3:2 into 1:1.

You haven't said any of this because you know better but if you go back through the thread, there are parts of it that could be understood as supporting those 2 implicit assumptions.


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## clee01l (Apr 15, 2015)

> If I want to make a 6016px × 4016px photo exactly fit on 12''x16'' paper at 300dpi, I need to re-size it to 4800px x 3600px, which is a 4:3 aspect ratio;


You can't resize to 4800px x 3600px because LR export will only let you resize to 5393X3600  Any part of the image between 4800px & 5393px will fall outside of the edges of the paper if you fill the 12" edge with the 3600 px.   In LR you can crop directly to 4:3 and the pixel dimensions of the initial crop window will be 5355X4016.  You lose only 661 px on the long side trimming the (not quite 3:2) aspect ratio to 4:3.  You don't need to export exactly 4800X3600 since the print driver/print function will translate the 334.6 ppi to the print resolution of the printer.


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## Modesto Vega (Apr 15, 2015)

clee01l said:


> You can't resize to 4800px x 3600px because LR export will only let you resize to 5393X3600  Any part of the image between 4800px & 5393px will fall outside of the edges of the paper if you fill the 12" edge with the 3600 px.   In LR you can crop directly to 4:3 and the pixel dimensions of the initial crop window will be 5355X4016.  You lose only 661 px on the long side trimming the (not quite 3:2) aspect ratio to 4:3.  You don't need to export exactly 4800X3600 since the print driver/print function will translate the 334.6 ppi to the print resolution of the printer.


Could we just please forget about printing and re-sizing for a minute? Could we just go back to basics before we bring printing and resizing into the equation?

1) Are you saying that a crop resulting on a 4800px x 3600px image is not possible, at least theoretically, not that I will use Lr for this, Lr is not the tool for this?

2) Are you saying that 4800px x 3600px is not a 4:3 crop?

3) Are you saying that the only 4:3 crop available is 5393px 3600px?


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## clee01l (Apr 16, 2015)

Modesto Vega said:


> Could we just please forget about printing and re-sizing for a minute? Could we just go back to basics before we bring printing and resizing into the equation?
> 
> 1) Are you saying that a crop resulting on a 4800px x 3600px image is not possible, at least theoretically, not that I will use Lr for this, Lr is not the tool for this?



You said 


> If I want to make a 6016px × 4016px photo exactly fit on 12''x16'' paper at 300dpi, I need to *re-size it to 4800px x 3600px*


 You can only resize on Export in LR and you can not change the aspect ratio from ~3:2 to 4:3 on Export (This is the initial problem of the OP).  LR is the tool to use for cropping and the crop tool is located in the Develop module. Any Aspect ratio that can be used as long as the widest dimension does not exceed 6016px and the tallest dimension does not exceed 4016px.


> 2) Are you saying that 4800px x 3600px is not a 4:3 crop?


No, I'm saying you can't get a 4:3 image from a 3:2 image without cropping away the parts of the imaged that do not fit inside a 4:3 crop window



> 3) Are you saying that the only 4:3 crop available is 5393px 3600px?


No I'm saying the *initial* crop window is 5355px X 4016px when you choose the 4:3 crop tool preset.   You can make the crop window smaller by grabbing the crop handles and dragging, even to 4800px x 3600px  or smaller but you can not make it larger than 5355px X 4016px The crop window 5393px X 3600px is not 4:3.  It is close to but not exactly 3:2.

The image below shows which aspect ratios are possible inside the 6016X4016px original image,  The second image shows the minimum that would get trimmed if you crop the original image to 4:3


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## Modesto Vega (Apr 18, 2015)

Now that 


clee01l said:


> You can only resize on Export in LR and you can not change the aspect ratio from ~3:2 to 4:3 on Export (This is the initial problem of the OP)./QUOTE]
> Precisely (on both counts) and the reason why I have contributed to keep this thread alive for so long is because I do not understand how we have managed to make a thread about resizing a about cropping. We all agreed that Lr does not do what the OP wanted to achieve but we might have scared the OP away by making this a thread about cropping, aspect rations and fractions.
> 
> Resizing is a side effect of cropping like muscle pains are a side effect of exercising but I am hoping nobody exercises just to get muscle pains, the same way I am hoping we are not suggesting that resizing is the primary purpose of cropping; cropping is done for aesthetical reasons: one of which is changing the aspect ratio (but not all cropping results on an aspect ratio change, a 3:2 crop on an image wit a 3:2 aspect ration is possible) and another loosing any intentional or accidental bleeding space on a photograph (this is really my main point).
> ...


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