100% Crop: I know how to achieve it and I use it when culling my photos but I haven't seen a good definition of it or any other % crop. Some internet forums suggested that it's related...

ecobin Loc: Paoli, PA

I know how to achieve it and I use it when culling my photos but I haven't seen a good definition of it or any other % crop. Some internet forums suggested that it's related to screen resolution - I doubt it. I took one of my photos and did various crops and noted the resulting pixel dimensions and % reductions. But I fail to see the relationship.

I'm sure there are many with the answer - thanks.

dennis2146 Loc: Eastern Idaho

ecobin wrote:

I know how to achieve it and I use it when culling my photos but I haven't seen a good definition of it or any other % crop. Some internet forums suggested that it's related to screen resolution - I doubt it. I took one of my photos and did various crops and noted the resulting pixel dimensions and % reductions. But I fail to see the relationship.

I'm sure there are many with the answer - thanks.

I appreciate your question and am anxious to see the answers. I have no idea myself how it is computed but when I take macro shots of spiders and plants I normally shoot as close to 1-1 ratio as I can. But then in the case of a tiny jumper spider or small flower I crop to where it can be seen well in the finished photo. I hear many members tell us they cropped 100% or some other percentage but have no idea how they figure it out.

Dennis

Bob Mevis Loc: Plymouth, Indiana

I don't grasp it either- go figger.

ecobin Loc: Paoli, PA

dennis2146 wrote:

I appreciate your question and am anxious to see the answers. I have no idea myself how it is computed but when I take macro shots of spiders and plants I normally shoot as close to 1-1 ratio as I can. But then in the case of a tiny jumper spider or small flower I crop to where it can be seen well in the finished photo. I hear many members tell us they cropped 100% or some other percentage but have no idea how they figure it out.
Dennis

Photoshop, Affinity Photo, Photo Mechanic, and many others show the cropped percentage. But I couldn't find the formula anywhere.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

As you found in your initial research, it is related to screen resolution. Your screen has a fixed pixel resolution. When the pixels in the image are 1 to 1 to the screen, you are looking at a 100% crop. Note how the image gets 'fuzzy' when you go beyond 100% in your digital editor.

Say your high-def screen is sized 1920x1080 pixels for a 16x9 aspect ratio. When you look at an image at or larger than 1920x1080px and you 'zoom' to 100%, you are seeing just a 100% crop of the larger image for exactly a section measured 1920 pixels x 1080 pixels.

Consider your image measuring 8290 x 4560. Using my example monitor at 1920x1080 that measures 21-inches across. You'd need a monitor wider than 80-inches (4x) to see the entire image at the original 38MP resolution at 1:1 pixels to screen.

See examples and somewhat related discussion: Recommended resizing parameters for digital images

ecobin Loc: Paoli, PA

CHG_CANON wrote:

It is related to screen resolution. Your screen has a fixed pixel resolution. When the pixels in the image are 1 to 1 to the screen, you are looking at a 100% crop. Note how the image gets 'fuzzy' when you go beyond 100% in your digital editor.

Say your high-def screen is sized 1920x1080 pixels for 16x9 aspect ration. When you look at an image at or larger than 1920x1080px, you are seeing just a 100% crop of the larger image for exactly a section measured 1920 pixels x 1080 pixels.

Paul, I was thinking of you when I wrote the post. My 10 year old 27" iMac indicates 2760x1440. But in my table 1164x776 represented 100% crop. Can you help?

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

ecobin wrote:

Paul, I was thinking of you when I wrote the post. My 10 year old 27" iMac indicates 2760x1440. But in my table 1164x776 represented 100% crop. Can you help?

I continued to update my comment, see what is now the final version. When you're viewing a 2760x1440 section of a larger image, that is when you're viewing a 100% crop at a 1:1 pixel resolution. I unsure of the numbers in your table as the percentage identified as a 'crop %' is not consistent with my presentation of a 1:1 view of the image.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

ecobin wrote:

... I took one of my photos and did various crops and noted the resulting pixel dimensions and % reductions. But I fail to see the relationship...

So how did you crop and how did you determine the percentage of the crop? Are you depending on some software to give you the crop percentage?

For example your chart says that the second row is a 50% crop. But the width is 2302, which is 27.77% of the original 8290 width and the aspect ratio has changed since the height is now 1534, which is 33.64% of the original 4560 height. I haven't a clue how those numbers get to 50% crop.

The row marked 100% crop is 14.04% as wide as the original and 17.02% as high.

The chart doesn't make any sense to me.

There is a definition floating around that says that a 100% crop is a photo that is cropped but not resized. A pretty vague definition if I ever heard one.

ecobin Loc: Paoli, PA

CHG_CANON wrote:

I continued to update my comment, see what is now the final version. When you're viewing a 2760x1440 section of a larger image, that is when you're viewing a 100% crop at a 1:1 pixel resolution.

I get now - thanks so much.

ecobin Loc: Paoli, PA

DirtFarmer wrote:

So how did you crop and how did you determine the ... (show quote)

I use Affinity Photo and it provides the pixel dimensions after cropping.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

ecobin wrote:

I use Affinity Photo and it provides the pixel dimensions after cropping.

So does Affinity allow you to crop by defining a percentage? Or does it just give you the percentage after you crop it?

I would think a reasonable definition has nothing to do with cropping. It's a photo that you view at one image pixel = one screen pixel. Cropping is irrelevant.

CamB Loc: Juneau, Alaska

ecobin wrote:

I know how to achieve it and I use it when culling my photos but I haven't seen a good definition of it or any other % crop. Some internet forums suggested that it's related to screen resolution - I doubt it. I took one of my photos and did various crops and noted the resulting pixel dimensions and % reductions. But I fail to see the relationship.

I'm sure there are many with the answer - thanks.

I'm confused. If you crop something 100% there is nothing left. 100% is the whole thing. You can't crop something 120%. Also, I don't see why you would need to know how much you cropped by percent. You crop for composition or crop to fit a particular format (frame size or screen dimensions). Some might tell you that a certain number is pixels can only be cropped so much, but this is mostly bunk. If it's sharp and the exposure is right, something with very few pixels can be cropped or enlarged with amazing results. I have no idea what the percentage is of any shot of mine that has been cropped. I can't think of any use for knowing this. Bottom line: don't worry about it.
...Cam

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

On that note, I think that 100% view would be a much more reasonable term to use. If I have an image and I view it at 100% (1 image pixel = 1 screen pixel) then for a "normal" size image (one that comes from pretty much any camera manufactured after 2000) the image will be larger than the screen, so you will see a "cropped" photo. But it's the screen that does the cropping, not anything you did.

Several editing packages will allow you to look at a 100% view of your image. IrfanView (ctrl-H) will show you the 100% view. If it is larger than the screen you will see scroll bars that allow you to see the parts the screen cropped off. Lightroom has several viewing choices: fit, fill, 2:1, 1:1, 1:2 and probably some others. Fit will reduce the image so it all fits in the program window. Fill will make sure the whole window is filled, but that could easily crop off some height or width depending on the image aspect ratio. 1:1 is a 100% view.

I'm not familiar with Affinity or other editing software so I don't know how they display images.

ecobin Loc: Paoli, PA

CamB wrote:

Bottom line: don't worry about it.
...Cam

Curious minds want to know!

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

ecobin wrote:

Curious minds want to know!

I believe you'll find "100% crop" is slang rather than an actual statement. It's used in regard to the pixel-level details, aka pixel peeping, rather than a literal 100% 'crop' where logically you're left with 0 actual pixels in the resulting image.