Ipernity Frontpage Contest - closed / Discussions

Since a lot of pictures are posted with the wrong aspect ratio, I'll make a short explanation on how to determine the current aspect ratio of a picture and changing it. As example program I use Picasa since it is really easy to use and free. But you should be able to do this with any photo-software.

When you open your picture in Picasa it'll something like this:



In the red rectangle you'll find the resolution of the picture. To determine the aspect ratio you divide the first and second number:

Resolution: 1600x1200
Calculation: 1600/1200=1.333=4/3=4:3

So in this case we have an aspect ratio of 4:3, This is often the case with pictures taken with compact cameras or DSLR's of the FourThirds system (Olympus, Panasonic).

For iFC however it is necessary to change that to 3:2. To do so you press the "Crop" Button on the left. Then it will look like this:



The nice thing about Picasa is, that it gives you a help in gaining the desired aspect ratio. Choose 10x15 on the left (15/10=1.5=3/2=3:2). Then click left somewhere in the picture and drag open a rectangle. Then you can still drag the borders of the rectangle until the right and left borders touch the borders of the picture:



Should the resizing block somewhere try to drag another border.
To get a 3:2 out of a 4:3 you only need to crop something off the top and bottom of the picture. You can move the rectangle by just clicking somewhere inside and dragging. When you're content with the cropping click on apply.



Should the result not satisfy your needs, you can always use "undo crop" or "recrop".
To check everythings correct now, again we look at the resolution: 1600x1066
Calculation: 1600/1066=1.5=3/2=3:2

Some typical 3:2 resolutions:
560x373 (this is the minimum!)
1024x682
2048x1365
4096x2730

In a last step, you save a copy and your done!



That's it. :)

light...