I had to supply a 10x8 print recently to a client who wanted the picture, a portrait of the new Chairman, to go with the rest on their wall. It reminded me that around the same time last year, I had been asked to do the same, and indeed have been now for quite a number of years. The point was though that it had to be 10x8 so it matched with all the other portraits already on their wall.

Now up until this year I had always produced the print on my own printer, the Epson 2100, using a sheet of A4, and this is the old chestnut bit of this blog. Last year I remember banging on about the fact that this was all an issue for me. Why have the inkjet photo paper manufacturers not geared up to the needs of photographers?

The 10x8 format or 5:4 aspect ratio is a throwback to the film days, when some large format film sizes had the same ratio. The fact is though that the photo paper manufacturers did supply 10x8 and the other sizes photographers used 81/2x61/2 was another common paper size along with 5x7.

In this digital age though, these sizes are outdated, and yet the inkjet paper people don't seem to have adapted. What do we find in high street stores and to a large extent even online? A4 packs of extremely overpriced paper. There are some other sizes and 6x4" can often be found. A4 though is the most odd size for photographers, who use cameras with aspect ratios of 3:2 or 4:3 What does this result in then? Why, enlarging to fill the format and therefore cropping out some of the image, or reducing to use the full image and then cropping the paper. What a nonsense!!

The manufacturers are producing tons of inkjet photo quality paper on a daily basis, and the sole purpose of the paper is to produce photo prints. So why can't they rejig their systems to produce paper sizes with the correct aspect ratio. 9x6 or 12x8 would suit the dSLR (3:2) users and 8x6 or 12x9 for the four thirds and digicam (4:3) users.

The online printers seem to have taken this on board, and the you can get prints in pretty much any format from the likes of Photobox. I now get 71/2x5" prints made, its the same price as 7x5" but I don't have to crop my photo to fit the format. Now before any smart Alec says Ahh but....... I realise the online printers use rolls of paper. So a 71/2x5" print comes off the same 5" wide roll as the 5x7" print. Surely though the same principle can be used by the manufacturers who could guillotine their paper off rolls to suit the exact aspect ratio needed by photographers.

They don't make it easy for us do they, and here's another reason why my 2100 could be going on Ebay