Aspect Ratios & Custom Crops

Every Product Studio perspective is generated at a specific aspect ratio, the shape of the final image, like 3:4 or 1:1. You can pick a standard ratio, or set a custom ratio: any width-to-height you need, such as 7:9 for a marketplace that requires it, even though the AI models don't produce that shape on their own. Brandmachine bridges the gap and delivers the exact ratio you asked for.

Standard vs. Custom Ratios

When you set up a perspective (Settings → Product Studio → Perspectives), the Aspect Ratio control offers:

Standard presets: 3:4 (default), 1:1, 4:5, 2:3, 9:16, 5:4, 4:3, 3:2, 16:9, 21:9. These are shapes the AI models produce directly, so there's no cropping at all.
Custom W:H: enter any width and height (e.g. 7 and 9). Brandmachine generates at the closest standard shape and then crops the result down to your exact ratio.

A perspective uses one or the other: choosing a standard preset clears any custom ratio, and entering a custom ratio takes over. Whatever you choose, every place the image appears in Brandmachine (the results grid, zoom, review, and the high-res download) shows that exact ratio. What you see is what you download.

What Happens Behind the Scenes

The AI models can only generate a fixed set of image shapes. When you ask for a shape they don't make (like 7:9), Brandmachine:

Generates at the closest shape the model does make (for 7:9, that's 4:5).
Crops the result down to your exact 7:9.

This happens once, at generation time. The stored image is already your ratio, so everything downstream (background color correction, the photo editor, releasing, and downloading) works on the final cropped image. Nothing later has to know a crop happened.

Reading the Crop Hint

When you enter a custom ratio, the modal shows a hint like:

Generates at 4:5, trims ~2.8% to reach 7:9.

It tells you (a) which standard shape is actually generated, and (b) roughly how much of the image is trimmed to reach your target. The closer your custom ratio is to a standard one, the smaller the trim: 7:9 sits very close to 4:5, so only about 2.8% is cropped away.

What You Can Rely On

It never stretches or upscales. Brandmachine only ever crops inward from a larger image; it never enlarges pixels to fill a shape. Your product is never distorted.
The crop is centered, trimming evenly from the edges of the longer dimension.
The trim is kept minimal by always generating at the closest available shape.
It's consistent everywhere: grid, zoom, review, and download all reflect the same ratio.

Under the Hood (Technical)

For the technically curious, here's how the crop stays exact and why the model you pick matters a little.

The models have different native shapes. Product Studio runs on three image models, and they don't all support the same shapes:

Nano Banana 2 and Gemini 3 Pro each produce a fixed set of 10 "native" ratios, exactly the standard presets listed above.
GPT Image 2 is more flexible: it accepts explicit pixel dimensions, so it isn't limited to those 10 shapes.

The standard presets are deliberately the common set every Product Studio model supports, so a custom target always maps to a shape the chosen model can render.

Choosing the shape to generate. For a custom target, Brandmachine picks the native shape that loses the least to cropping, the one whose proportions are closest to your target. For 7:9 that's 4:5 (~2.8% trimmed), which beats the next-closest 3:4 (~3.6%).

Why the result is always exact, whatever the model does. The crop is computed from the actual pixels the model returns, not from the shape we requested. So even if a model interprets the request loosely and returns a slightly different shape, the crop still trims to your exact target. The only thing that changes is how much is trimmed, never the final ratio. And because the crop box is always inscribed inside the returned image, it can only ever cut, never enlarge.

GPT Image 2 nuance. Because GPT Image 2 accepts arbitrary sizes, it could in principle be asked to generate your exact ratio directly, with almost no crop. Today it goes through the same closest-shape-then-crop path as the other models for consistency, so it may trim a little more than strictly necessary. The final image is exactly your ratio either way.

Adding new models. Because the standard presets are the shared, model-agnostic set, a future model that supports more shapes would still work, it just wouldn't yet take advantage of its extra shapes (it would crop from the nearest shared one). A model that supports fewer shapes would need its supported set checked before being added. In short: aspect-ratio handling is currently shared across models rather than tailored per model.

Reliable even when a model is sparse with metadata. Some models don't report the generated image's dimensions in their response. Brandmachine measures the stored image itself in that case, so the crop always has accurate dimensions to work from.

FAQs

Can I set any ratio I want? Yes, within reason: enter any width and height as whole numbers. Extreme ratios work but trim more of the image, since they sit farther from the nearest standard shape.

Does a custom ratio reduce image quality? There's no stretching or upscaling, so nothing is degraded that way. You do lose the pixels trimmed off the edges (the larger the crop, the fewer pixels remain), but the kept area stays at full quality.

Why can't the AI just generate 7:9 directly? Most image models only output a fixed menu of shapes. 7:9 isn't on that menu, so Brandmachine generates the closest menu item and crops to your exact ratio.

Does the model I choose change the result? The final ratio is always exactly what you set. The model can affect how much is trimmed (each model's native shapes differ slightly), but not the outcome you receive.

Does background color correction still work with a custom ratio? Yes. Correction and the photo editor run on the already-cropped image and preserve its ratio.

What happens to the original, uncropped image? The cropped image becomes the final and only image, and the uncropped original isn't kept. (If the crop step ever fails for a render, Brandmachine keeps that render's uncropped image rather than losing it.)

If I change a perspective's ratio, do my existing images change? No. The ratio applies to new generations. Images you've already generated keep the ratio they were made with.

How do I switch a perspective back to a standard ratio? Just pick a standard preset in the Aspect Ratio control, and the custom ratio clears automatically.

For further help, contact support@brandmachine.shop.