Ced Bennett Photography
Travel and Landscape
Aspect Ratio and Paper Size
Background
This page lists the various paper sizes that will exactly fit specific aspect ratios. However, it only lists those aspect ratios that pertain to images on this website. And it limits the list of paper sizes to those which are available from the photo lab we are using and that fit the aspect ratio exactly. There are many other paper print sizes available and they may be used by simply choosing to crop the photo to fit or choosing to print the photo without cropping and accepting the white bands on the top / bottom or on the sides.
Please note that every image on this site (except those with the very common 2x3 aspect ratio) includes its aspect ratio as a note at the end of the photo's caption: they all look like "[1x3 ratio]" (where "1x3" may be some other ratio). You can see the title and caption of a photo when you look at individual photos in the "lightbox" view (that is, when you click on an individual image in a photo gallery). If you need a refresher on what an aspect ratio is and how it relates to print paper size, just take a look at this page.
In addition, when you going through the print purchase process you'll see that print paper sizes are grouped into types: Standard Sizes, Other Sizes, Panoramic Sizes, and Square Sizes. Other specialty print groupings like Canvas, ThinWraps, and Metal are generally a subset of the other print sizes. On this site the vast majority of images are in the 2x3 ratio.
Finally, some of these available print sizes are quite large (e.g., 40" x 60" -- which is 3 1/3 feet by 5 feet BEFORE any matting and framing). In some cases, the original image will not look its best when printed at such a size). If you are interested in an print in one of these larger dimensions, please feel free to write to me at Ced@CedBennett.Photography and I'll give you my best advice about the specific photo.
Standard and Other Sizes
2x3 ratio:
This is the most common aspect ratio for prints on this site since it is the normal, uncropped, directly-out-of-the-camera ratio for any digital camera that emulates a film-based 35mm camera. The exact fit Standard paper sizes are (in inches):
4x6 8x12 10x15 12x18 16x24 20x30 24x36
In addition, exact fit Other Sizes include:
11x16 30x45 40x60
There are very few 4x5 ratio photos on this site (at the site's release there was exactly one). This ratio accommodates the very familiar 8" x 10" and 16" x 20" frame or mat sizes (and some other, larger, ones). Similarly, there was only one 1x1 ratio photo on the site at the start. That ratio will fit any photo paper which has all sides equal (in other words, a square).
Panoramic Sizes
1x2 ratio will exactly fit the following (in inches):
4x8 5x10 8x16 10x20 12x24 15x30 20x40 30x60
1x3 ratio will exactly fit the following (in inches):
5x15 6x18 8x24 10x30 11x33 12x36 16x48 20x60 30x90
1x4 ratio will exactly fit the following (in inches):
5x20 6x24 8x32 10x40 12x48 16x64 30x120