100% crop

[Chuck Lee]

At zoom actual pixels it is 100%. So what crop is this?

That my friend is the 100% crop...[] The borders of your screen are cropping your image. If you selected a rectangle anywhere from that region and discarded the rest and save, that would be a 100% crop. As said by others, it is what we use to "pixel peep" and judge the sharpness or noise or IQ of an image. So, when people post 100% crops they are posting a portion of the image that represents a full 100% zoom on your's, mine, Daniel's, and everyone else's monitor screens.


Hope that clarifies.

[clemmb]

Hope that clarifies.
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Yes, this clarified it for me but it does not seem to fit what I see others post when they say this is 100% crop. If I give you 100% crop of a head&amp;shoulders portrait for example you are only going to see the eyes. This is good for showing you how sharp my 5D is but you probably already know how sharp it is. So if I take an image and crop exactly half of it away I should tell you this is an 18.6% crop? That is what PS shows after the crop and I zoom to fit screen. If I reduce an image for posting but keep the images as it was shot then I should tell you that it is a 9.2% crop?


Mark

[Chuck Lee]

So if I take an image and crop exactly half of it away I should tell you this is an 18.6% crop?

No, you would say "cropped 50%". That is not the same as saying a "50% crop". It isn't an expression that is used normally anyway. When someone states that they are showing you a 100% crop then it is inferred that you are not seeing a reduction but the actual 1:1 pixel by pixel display of the original image. Cropped in the purest definition means "cut away". The term 100% crop is a variation of that expression. Most folks don't state whether or not their images are post cropped. i.e. If someone shows you a square formatted photo they don't tell you it's cropped square. That displayed image may only be 64% of the orignal photo. You, as the viewer will never know.

That is what PS shows after the crop and I zoom to fit screen.

The 18.6% crop after a fit to screen is the zoom ratio of your monitor. You may be working on a 1280 x 1024. On my 1920x1200 it may report 25.4%. It's also dependent on the window size. Make Photoshop window only half of your screen and zoom to fit. The zoom percentage will go down even further.

If I reduce an image for posting but keep the images as it was shot then I should tell you that it is a 9.2% crop?

No, because that is not a crop it is a reduction.


Also, remember there are ratio crops. Our cameras shoot in a 2:3 width to height ratio. To print this image we may choose to print on 5 x 7 or 8 x10 paper. It is at that time that we decide which part of the image has to be "cropped" inorder for it to fully fit on that size paper.


Does this help any?

[clemmb]

Does this help any?
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Yes. Perfectly. Sometimes I just need a good complete explanation.


Thanks.


Mark

[lculpin]

Errrr... How much Crop could a Pixel Crop Crop if a Pixel Crop could Crop Pixel(s)?


(I actually get the concept, I've just never read crop so many times in so few lines :P)

[canoli]

Errrr... How much Crop could a Pixel Crop Crop if a Pixel Crop could Crop Pixel(s)?

Exactly!


Thanks for injecting some humor into this crazy thread - apparently it's not so self-explanatory if you don't intuitively understand it.


Like Daniel said, you can't get too literal on this one. Literally it would mean "Here's the entire image." In reality it means "Actual Pixels." However you slice it (doh!), as long as you make your crop in 100% view, when you post it it's considered a "100% crop." You cropped your image while in 100% view.


See? That's how many pixels a Pixel-Crop would crop if a Pixel-Crop could crop pixels!