In my ongoing pursuit for another project, I was staring at my ultra-wide screen monitor when I had the idea of creating a wallpaper image based on one of my studio artworks. I used to work with a 2:3 ratio, which is standard for a photo, but switched to the 4:5 ratio after using Instagram. I sometimes use the 1:1 square ratio for my Facebook profile picture. However, my studio art portraits are usually 5:4, so it would be a challenge to recreate them in the 21:9 ratio.
So I hit on an idea… why not create the initial artwork in a 21:9 ratio, then crop the image down for the respective sizes if required? As long as the focal point is still in the dead centre, the crop tool in Capture One expands from the centre anyway, so I can export the 21:9 switch to 16:9, export, switch to 1:1, export then 5:4 etc…
Remember that creating a 21:9 image, the file size can top out at about 1.2 gig which is huge. However, I am now using TIF with ZIP layered compression, as well as other methods to drag the file size down so the Ultra Widescreen image of Faye Wild shown below was a staggering 954 meg, but when saved was a measly 283 meg.
I recreated some recent studio shots using this method.
I noticed that the backgrounds in my portrait images were appearing small in comparison, making them look stretched. To address this, I used Topaz Gigapixel AI to increase their resolution and improve the details. However, going back to edit every portrait shot I've taken would be a time-consuming task, so I have decided not to do so. Maybe in the future, I will consider it.