Have you tried the “Fit” mode to 7500 square?
Off topic: I like Dream Theater too!
Other softwares I use do this the right way.
So it is possible to get right results.
Would be nice to be able to enter desire output size in pixel.
I know some do not need it, but some do.
I stand corrected. It should’ve been 5538 x 3692, but no matter how much I moved the top right corner in or out I was unable to select a perfect 3 x 2 crop. Which was my point to begin with. You select 3 x 2 as the target aspect ratio and start cropping, but PhotoLab doesn’t honor that selection.
That to my mind is a software bug.
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I’ve given up on dimensions. I export photos for Flickr as “6 megapixels” and for my bird photo site as “4 megapixels”. This results in images of perceptually similar sizes regardless of the ratio.
When I used dimensions, super wide shots were small and square shots were enormous.
With another photo, where the crop needed to be symmetrical, I needed quite a few attempts of resizing the crop and doing the calculations to make the pixel count underneath the photo exactly match the selected aspect ratio.
I got it right eventually, but this should not have to be such a painstaking process to get a proper aspect ratio crop…
Have you yet tried getting the crop as near as possible visually, then using the “Fit” mode, with square dimensions, for exporting?
Did you try to zoom in a lot before moving the corner ?
Yes, that works too.
But I still have to perform the calculations with the shown crop size to make sure that the desired and selected aspect ratio is honoured after cropping.
Dragging one corner only does not necessarily ensure the perfect aspect ratio.
Dragging other corners too can help a lot.
Also, it’s good practice to establish the crop size and aspect ratio first - before dragging the crop frame to the intended position. Take care to not drag lines or corners, unless you want to start anew.
Symmetrical alignment would be much easier if the crop grid could be changed. This has been requested, but not yet implemented.
But, as my experiments have proved, specifying the ratio with the crop is good enough for the export to honour it when set to the same pixel size for both axes.
But you don’t seem to have tried that technique yet. Any reason?
You say that something like 1x1.001 crop turns out to be a perfect 1.0x1.0 export?
In my tests a 2228 x 2226 crop gets me 1000 x 999 or 5000 x 4996 exports…even though I set crop to 1x1.
Of course, floating point is also called “flop”…
OK. I give up. My method works when it works, when the weather is sunny with rain, when there’s an R in the month, if I’m asleep with one eye open, etc.
In other words, it’s definitely SNAFU and needs reporting 
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What is the right way? Bypassing these combinations with broken numbers?
This one is exact. As is the exported jpg. Maybe I’m missing something.
George
I specify the ratio when I crop. But the software doesn’t honour the crop ratio when exporting to JPG. I always choose a certain amount of pixels for the longest side so don’t need to export separately for photos in landscape and in portrait orientation.
Or am I missing something?
As stated before, it IS possible to crop in PhotoLab according to the selected aspect ratio, when being very precise and making calculations to ensure that the largest side of the cropped photo in pixels divided by the highest number of the chosen aspect ratio does not result in a fractioned number. That result times the lowest number of the aspect ratio should be equal to the smallest side of the cropped photo in pixels.
This way cropping becomes very labour intensive, which negates the increased speed in which I was able to edit my photos in PhotoLab 8 (compared to using Lightroom).
With Lightroom, after having applied a crop with the chosen aspect ratio, the exported JPG would always be according to the selected aspect ratio selected during editing. The export process in Lightroom would allow me to simply select the size (in pixels) of the largest side of the photo and the exported file would always be of the chosen aspect ratio, whether the photo had a horizontal or vertical orientation.
Making the crop grid ‘snap’ to the nearest proper spect ratio during cropping or color the pixel size red if the dimensions are not exactly according to the chosen aspect ratio would help a lot.
Yes. If you specify the “Fit” mode and enter the largest dimension for both sides, no matter what the orientation, the exported files will adapt to the appropriate orientation.
Don’t mix up the two functions crop and export. Export is resizing your image/crop.
I’m still wondering how other “better” programs do handle the crop.
Still don’t know why you need such a precision.
George
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I haven’t tried the “Fit” option yet, but if it works the way that I think it does than it would mean that an additional crop will be applied to the long or short side of the photo to ‘fit’ the exact dimensions specified in the export dialog. This means that you don’t have full control over which part of the cropped photo will be left out of the exported photo when using this mode. I know that it’s ‘just’ a matter of several pixels in the exported image, but it could mean the difference between an object or subject standing free of the edge of the photo or ‘touching’ the edge of the photo. And I can tell you from experience that THAT does matter.
To some this precision might not matter. But it matters to me and possibly to others too. If there’s full control over white balance, colours, shadows, highlights, etc, then why not for the aspect ratio?
All I would like is some aid while cropping my photos.
Some combinations just don’t exist. Be it in PL or any other editor. It’s simple math.
What you’re now asking is skipping these combinations that doesn’t exist in natural numbers. From a “fault” of 1 row you will skip 2 combinations. And that’s with the 2:3 ratio. What about the other ratios?
I still wonder for what purpose you need that accuracy.
George