A large amount of photos and art are now available in digital format. These include those which have taken with camera phones and digital cameras. Today's camera phones frequently have sufficient resolution for sizes such as 8x12 and even sometimes 16x24. You can also find a host of digital files that are available for purchase from stock photo companies on-line. Frequently these stock photo companies offer various resolutions of the same image depending on how you intent to use the image. Although you can search for images on-line that frequently identify web-size images, these images are typically too low-res for printing giclees with an acceptable quality.

Each image file used for giclee printing has an aspect ratio. The aspect ratio is the size of the longer side in pixels divided by the size of the shorter side in pixels. For example, if the image file is 6000 pixels by 4000 pixels, the aspect ratio is 6000/4000 = 1.5 (3:2). This is the typical aspect ratio for most 35mm film and digital cameras. It is also one of the choices available on phones.

From such a file, you would be able to print without stretching or cropping any size that has the same aspect ratio. For this example file of aspect ratio 3:2, you would be able to print 4x6, 8x12, 12x18, 16x24, 20x30, and 24x36 since they all have the same aspect ratio.

The diagram illustrates the same image photographed or cropped to different aspect ratios. To avoid image cropping or stretching, it is best to provide the image for giclee printing in the aspect ratio that you want for printing. So if your art original is 16x20, then the image of the art should also be in the ratio of 20/16 = 1.25 (5:4). If your art original canvas is 12x16, then the image of the art should be in the ratio of 16/12 = 1.33 (4:3). If your art original is 19x6, then the image of the art should be in the ratio of 19:6 or 1.77.If you art original is 24x24, then the image of the art should be in the ratio of 1:1 or 1.0.

Aspect ratio is different than resolution as explained above. The aspect ratio affects the print size while the resolution affects the image quality when printed at a given size.