When editing a photo in an image editor, sometimes you want to get that cinema-style look by cropping the photo to a specific ratio. The problem however is that other than the templates you may be given for "pre-boxed" cropping, you really have no clue what dimensions you’re supposed to use since photos are in different pixel dimensions depending on the camera you used.

Pixel Aspect Ratio Calculator takes care of this the easy way. All you have to do is punch in the ratio factors you want, then enter the pixel dimension you want, and you’re then given the info you need to crop your photo to a cinema-style ratio.

Here’s an example.

The photo below is 500 pixels wide by 333 pixels tall:

In the calculator, I type in that I want a cinema-style 2.39:1 ratio, then enter the width as 500 below that (entering height is not necessary as it will auto-calculate that part).

Now I know that to get that cinema ratio, the image should have its canvas cropped to 500×209.

Using GIMP, I load in the image, click Image then Canvas Size, click the chain link (to the left of the upper ‘pixels’ drop-down menu) so I can enter different numbers for width/height, set my canvas to 500×209, center the image using the Center button, then Resize:

This is the end result:

If you compare the two side-by-side, you can really see the difference:

Yes, it’s true you will chop off a good portion of the image from the top and bottom, but that’s the tradeoff when going for the cinema look in a photo.

Note that in GIMP you can adjust where the image centers on crop by clicking and dragging the box with your mouse.

Try the tool out for yourself!

Link: http://www.csgnetwork.com/pixelratiocalc.html

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