Why the 4x5 ratio?

[Elmo]

Originally Posted by Krusty79

If you're selling to the public, 8x10 is one of the most common sizes people want, as 8x10 frames are so common. Most non-photographers don't realize the native aspect ratio is 2:3 and to get that 8x10 print, two inches will have to be cropped off the ends of an 8x12. Some pros will compose their shots "loosely" so there is room to crop for those ordering 8x10s. I wish 8x12 frames were more common so this would not be an issue so often.

That is what mats are for. You can crop an image to any aspect ratio/size and mount it using mats with outside dims for mounting in standard sized frames. Images always look better when properly mounted.

[graciousness]

Print sizes and possible aesthetic and compositional reasons, pure and simple. Nothing to do with jibber jabber as per above, whatever it all means.

[autofocus]

@ccting, you are on a roll again. Posts such as yours above only serve to confuse the OP. I'm sure your heart is in the right place and you truly want to be helpful, but by your own admission you are a noob, and not even sure of your own argument. The OPs question(s) are very straight forward, and if you read through the thread you would have seen that his questions have already been sufficiently answered

[graciousness]

Holy batman, his posts get longer and longer by the hour! He does go back to it and add......It started out with 3 sentences before with a question, and then kept extrapolating as time went by. Now he's got an encyclopedia......

ccting, I hope you can sleep better tonight now that you've got all that stuff out of your head.

[jimmysen]

How come pixels don't correspond to inches in digital printing?
I tried to make my pixels 4x6, or 0.67 ratio, but the printer still wanted to crop. I ended up getting 4x5.33 prints. If I don't have Photoshop, or a program that works by physical dimensions, how do I compose my images so they don't need to be cropped?

[Krusty79]

Originally Posted by jimmysen

How come pixels don't correspond to inches in digital printing?
I tried to make my pixels 4x6, or 0.67 ratio, but the printer still wanted to crop. I ended up getting 4x5.33 prints. If I don't have Photoshop, or a program that works by physical dimensions, how do I compose my images so they don't need to be cropped?

I don't know what program you are using, but you can download GIMP for free. If you open an image in GIMP, clikc Image\Scale Image you will have a dialog box that lets you set the image size in terms of the number of pixels per side or click the down arrow to choose the number of inches per side. View the image at 100%, or else your resized image will be smaller than what you specified.

If have a DSLR and don't crop your images, they should be at a 2:3 aspect ratio and should not need any cropping for a 4x6, 8x12 or 12x18 (same aspect ratio).