8x10 versus 8x12 prints

If you are bent on 8x10 composition, then find a way to mark or mask your viewfinder accordingly, or mentally allow for it.Many, if not most shooters allow for a little space around their subjects to allow for various print formats.

If you know in advance your final image will be 8x10, then you should allow room for cropping. But if you getting 8x12's done and are happy with them, no reason to change.

Hi Bill, I always request full frame 8x10 prints which are 10 inches long but about 6.5 or so inches wide instead of cropped 8x10s. I like the look of the slightly longer print. These should fit in a standard frame with a custom mat. You could think about the necessary crop in camera but you miss out on the better looking (IMO) full frame format.

I'm interested which others prefer.

I like pics with 2:3 ratio. 4x6, 8x12, etc.

Sounds like an experience very similar to my own. I have always tried to make full-frame exposures in the view finder. After all, the 34X36mm slide or negative is pretty small, so why not try and use all of it? I learned the answer to this question a few years ago when I responded to suggestions that I print some of my covered bridge photos for sale at a local craft shop.

As you have discovered, if you are printing a full-frame 35mm negative for an 8X10 framed photo, the result most often is a 6.5" X 10" print. Precut inexpensive mats do not exist in this size. I had to pay a shop $6.00 per mat, which ruined my chances for a reasonable profit.

If I remember correctly, I considered making 8X12" prints to get away from this problem. The trouble was I would have had to spend a great deal more for larger photo paper, paper waste due to trimming would have been greater, and 8X12" mats didn't exist, either. Not that it made a difference, but I was able to locate a few economical 8X12" frames at discount stores.

The only way I know to get beyond this aspect ratio problem is to invest the time acquiring framing/matting skills (and equipment).

Sorry I wasn't much help-hopefully others can offer you some effective advice. I'm interested in reading it myself.

The Greeks thought that a rectangle with the ratio of the lengths of the sides equal to the Golden Ratio ( (1+sqrt(5))/2) = 1.618...) was the most aesthetically pleasing. They built the Parthenon and other buildings using this ratio. According to this reasoning, an 8x10 print should really be (rounding off) 8 x 12.9 or 6.2 x 10. An 8 x12 is therefore reasonably close to this ideal! I have made a few B&W prints by cutting 11 x 14 in. paper in half resulting in two 7 x 14 in. prints which have approximately the Golden Ratio of side lengths. Unfortunately, this forces me to cut my own mats, which never look as good as the pre-cut ones. Although my prints with this ratio look great, for example, for horizontal landscapes, I think that the best ratio is subject related. A vertical close-up portrait of a persons face would look peculiar printed this way (as it would printed 8 x 12).

Ahh, I seem to be running at one typo per submission. I meant, of course, 24X36mm in my post above.

Dear William,

I am saying this tongue in cheek, so, please bear with my gripe:

Simply do it like the newspaper do their ads nowadays: fatten the 2:3 aspect ratio to 4:5 for 8 by 10 inch prints in photoshop. Your insects will look fatter in one principal direction, and you will be able to use the cheaper 8 by 10 premade frames. Who knows what those pesky insects look like, anyway.

Even a pic of Schwarzy's was stretched in our local newspaper, giving him a tall stretched head and a gazelle type look on our front page. What a disgrace ... to journalism ...

One irritating fact is that photo paper is not available in 8x12 sizes either (B&W, I mean). You can get color enlargements for cheap in that size; I assume they use roll paper and just cut it longer.