Resizing portrait and landscape photos to same aspect ratio

March 26, 2024 5:24 PM

Squarespace Guy told me that in order for my photos to appear best on my online product catalog, they need to all be in the same aspect ratio. The difficulty is that some images are portrait and some are landscape. I know I can use white space as needed. But what's a good aspect ratio?
posted by mermaidcafe to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

In cases where I must show many images (usually a variety of headshots, from quality to "readjusted in Word", I go the ratio of 1:1. Up to you as to whether you include whole image as your thumbnail, or to to include white space to keep the entire image, but if your thumbnail has a link to full-sized image, I would just get in as much as I could in 1:1.

In non-catalog shots (banner, etc), you can be more varied in your ratios.
posted by b33j at 6:21 PM on March 26 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thank you. I will try that.

Is that something I can do on Squarespace or do I have to do elsewhere and import?
posted by mermaidcafe at 6:26 PM on March 26

I would go by how many are each size. If it's an equal number, I'd go 1:1 (caveat below). If there are more portrait than landscape, I'd go slightly taller than 1:1, like 5:4 portrait.

On second thought, maybe I'd probably lean towards more portrait than landscape given the volume of portrait-oriented phone browsing over landscape tablet or computer.

I tend to use Imagemagick, a command-line tool, for this. Instructions here.
posted by supercres at 8:19 PM on March 26 [2 favorites]

I was wondering why he didn't tell you which aspect ratio to use, and then thought maybe they had a FAQ or something that would help. And I found this, which also includes some ways to crop your image. But there are many programs that will help crop an image to a specific size. I use Adobe Express to create image posts on FB and IG, and it has presets for specific platforms. But I'm sure there are lots out there; I just already happened to have an Adobe account.
posted by Molasses808 at 9:17 PM on March 26

Mod note: One comment removed. If you have a question separate from this one, please create your own post, thank you!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:11 AM on March 27