Are there any "rules" to picking an aspect ratio for a render?
Kevin Rye
Posts: 392
Whenever I do anything landscape, I always do it in 16:9. That way it looks great on my monitor as a wallpaper. I though to myself the other day, I should think about having some of these printed. I wasn't until I went to go print them that I realized that 16:9 isn't exactly a common print size. Even if I just wanted an 8x10 to put in an album or portfolio, it's not the right aspect. With that it mind, I though I that I should stop rendering at 1080p for the off chance that I decide to have something printed.
Same with portraits, I just can't decide on 4x6, 8x10, 20x30?
Is there a "standard" aspect that's common to portrait renders? Looking at other artists on deviantart, etc, it seems that once someone's picked one, they seem to stick with it. Things aren't just arbitrarily cropped. They use a consistent aspect ratio throughout their work; be it portrait or landscape. But why did they choose 10x13? Personal preference?
Does this have any meaning? If you do book covers, do you stick with one size? DVD covers another? Posters? etc. Are there rules or guidelines based on the target media?
At the end of the year, I wanted to hop into iPhoto and make a book of all my renders for the year. But is 1080p a good fit for a book that prints as 13" x 10"? Probably not.
Also, look at all the product renders on DAZ. They are all at 8x10. They'd print perfectly as 8x10s. But why did they settle on 8x10? Are they having them printed over at HQ and hung on the wall? I doubt it, but for some reason they settled on a site-standard of 8x10 for product images. Why didn't they choose 4x6? Is there some industry-acceptance-common-use thing I don't know about? Am I reading too much into this aspect ratio thing or is it all completely arbitrary?
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Comments
It depends what you are going to use the renders for.
Also, if you want to make standard size prints, different countries have different standars sometimes.
If you use them for bookprints (as example), you should take the "bleeding" into considerration and leave some room on the edges that they can cut off at the printer's.
In printing 300 dpi is a much used standard for a max of A4, but if you go large, you might want to make that number higher.
Here some some info on photographic standards: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_print_sizes
And paper print size standards: http://www.dpandi.com/paper/
I know what the sizes are, but I'm looking to see if there's one reason or another as to why people choose one size over the other. You say it "depends what you are going to use the renders for". I'd like to know what "depends".
There has to be a bunch of Dazers on the forum here that takes jobs. Do customers ask for a specific aspect ratio or do you just do what you want and let them crop it to their needs?
on DA you can sell prints. i forget what the recommended pixels was.
It would be nice to make some money from renders. But, everyone on DA is basically an artist, can't imagine buying someone elses art.
Quick answer is I pick the format that I think looks best for the piece. I usually stay within a few standard formats for either landscape or portrait.
Some images just NEED certain formats.
For example I did this ultra wide one as an experiment with black empty space vs light after being inspired by another work. It could actually be cropped to make it even more "widescreen" to give it more emphasis.
And the portrait piece required the vertical format, in my opinion.
Its all what "looks" right to me. No "rules" for me other than that.
I like the 16:9 ratio, myself, and like you, found that the 8.5x11 sheets don't work too well with printing out the pictures.
Although, with some trial & error, I came across some settings for MSWord that gives me a little hope for doing a CGI Comic book:
I had set the margins for the printout to have .5" borders, you get a 7.5x10" printing field. In that, I can print a single 2880x1620pixel in landscape (~5.75x10"), leaving a field of about 1.75x10" that I decided to fill up with some text as a Main Title splash page. I somewhat centered the picture, but left about .5" above & 1.25" below for things like Book/Title, page number, and the usual disclaimer text for fictional works.
Other pages, I'm intending to paste two 2160x1215pixel renders (~4.125x7.5") one above the other, with a single return space between the renders. This will leave about an 1" above the renders & .5" below where I'm planning to fill up with text for Book/Chapter titles & page Numbers.
Also, I set the rendering pretty high (300px/inch) which is as good or better than you'll get with most old-style film photos. And you may have to play around with the font/text size to get things to fit (I actually have a v-e-r-y long disclaimer planned :) )
Aspect ratio selection is part of the creative process. What you select should be based on the image you are trying to create. And you shouldn't feel compelled to stick to only one aspect, unless you predominately are rendering for known entities such as wallpapers, paperback cover, magazine cover, etc. In print, many different aspects are used. Stuff hung on a wall often has no "standard" aspect at all; it has the aspect the artist felt most benefited the vision they were trying to create.
I also firmly believe that you should be willing to re-frame and re-render based on your desired application. I have many scene files with different cameras in them that differ only for the framing and aspect ratio. Now, Studio sucks for this, because the aspect is saved as a global scene property, rather than with each camera as it should be. So I include the aspect ratio for each camera as part of the camera's name so I know what to reset to if I have to re-render. Making one render at 16:9 for wallpaper use and another at 2:3 for a large format poster will give better results than trying to render once and hammer it into multiple uses. Granted, this means you need to pay more attention to your background elements (a wall that is fine in portrait orientation, but isn't wide enough to cover the view in a square or landscape aspect, for example). But in the long run, you will get better results using multiple cameras per scene.
And has been mentioned, don't forget that many print applications require you to render larger than the target print because of the bleed area that gets cut off in the printing process. Business cards, covers, etc., fall under this. If you're doing a poster print that will be matted and framed, then this is less of an issue. But even then, the matting will cover the edges of your image, just not by as much. (I believe .5" bleed on all four sides is common for print press.)
a:b where a/b = b/(a+b) is called the Golden ratio. In addition to popping up in all kinds of mathematics, it is allegedly very pleasing to the human eye
5:8 is a very close approximation
2:3
3:5
5:8
8:13
13:21
etc.
That is why I posted the sizes.
If you are going to illustrate a book, you are restricted to that book's sizes.
When someone commissions a work, my experience is that they give you the size, the dpi and the media it is going to be used for.(and a deadline)
Sometimes there is room for ideas or you have to talk the client through it step by step because they have no knowledge of any of the jargon.
Aspect ratio is mostly used in movie and video, although it is applicable to static work, it would be a first time for me if someone would ask for a specific ratio.
Some customers know exactly what they want and they hand you all the details.
Others don't, and then there can be more room for your own input.
Not sure if this helps but: I use 640x480 because it renders fast and doesn't use much memory. I have a 17 inch monitor too.
2:3
3:5
5:8
8:13
13:21
etc.That's the Fibonacci sequence...
I think the aspect ratio should be whatever suits the subject best. You can always use the 'letterbox' black bars to fill the space for a more standard ratio when printing.
I haven't looked at doing photographic style prints of my renders - though I do more 'photo' style renders.
I tend to render at 2:3 (portrait) or 3:2 (landscape) because that's, more or less, the ratio of 'standard' film stock and it feels "right".
Of course it also depends on the scene and how I've set the camera if I want a more panoramic look I'll use a 24mm camera and 16:9 ratio.
When I do photography for a job, I always pull back a bit and allow in some extra background.
That way I have some choice when it comes to cropping the image to its final composition and shape.
Yup. The ratios of successive Fibonacci numbers form a sequence of best approximations to the golden ratio. It also happens to be the slowest converging sequence of rational numbers that can be expressed as a simple continued fraction.
I prefer 16:10 aspect ratio because it's a bit taller and "fuller" than a traditional widescreen image (which just looks better to me), and usually it's a better size when I need to crop it for things like a desktop background or wraparound book cover. I'll use 4:3 (or 3:4) when I need a more square image, and I've even used 2:3 ratio (or thereabouts) when rendering images to be used for the front cover of a book.
For me, the "rules" are solely based on preference and/or need.
Greetings,
This might be of interest to you, especially if you name your cameras (16x9) or something like that...-- Morgan