What does a '100% crop' mean in a camera review?
Asked 6/26/2014
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2 answers
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In camera reviews, I often see a small rectangle selected from a photo and then shown enlarged so the detail is easier to inspect. Reviewers usually call this a "100% crop," but that seems confusing because it sounds like it should mean the whole image. What does "100% crop" actually mean, and is there a clearer term for it?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
12y ago
2 Answers
5
"100% crop" means a crop of the image at 100% enlargement (i.e. not scaled down to fit on the screen).
I agree the term is totally misleading - it sounds like a 50% crop should be half an image, so 100% crop should be the whole thing!
It's a term that's widely used unfortunately, I prefer the term "actual pixels" so I use that wherever possible in the hope that it will catch on.
Originally by user1375. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user1375
12y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
A "100% crop" usually means a cropped section of the image shown at 100% viewing size, also called 1:1 or "actual pixels." In practice, each image pixel is displayed as one pixel on your screen.
That’s why only a small part of the original photo is shown: a full-resolution image from a modern camera is usually much larger than a monitor can display at once, so the whole image would normally be scaled down to fit. A 100% crop avoids that scaling and lets you inspect fine detail, noise, or sharpness directly.
So the term refers to the display scale of the cropped section, not to how much of the original image is included. It can be misleading, but it is widely used in reviews. Clearer alternatives are "100% view," "1:1 view," or "actual pixels."
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