Cropping Prints

[SirMike1983]

I'm familiar with photoshop and the like for cropping digital images, but how do you crop actual 35mm prints? Is it a simple cut at home, or do you take the negatives somewhere and they crop them for you? I have a couple landscape pictures that would look nice with a little cropping around the edges to eliminate blank sky space. Thanks for the help.

[dmm96452]

You can scan the negatives or prints into your computer, crop them yourself and print or have them printed.

Another option would be to have a local lab do the cropping for you. I've never done that hopefully someone with experience with that will chime in with advice.

[another view]

A good lab can do any crop that you want. However, if you crop too much from a 35mm neg then the maximum size of your print can be affected. There are no rules, but going by past experience of myself and others I'd say that a 16x24 print from 35mm is really pushing your luck. Not bad when viewed at about 4' away as long as you're starting from a very sharp negative.

Now, this is for a full-frame print. Crop to just a small area and your print size for the same quality level will be proportionally smaller.

I'd have the highest quality scan made of the full 35mm neg (uncropped) and then crop it myself digitally. You'll have the most control this way.