Comments on: Crop and Chop

By: Troy

Troy — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 07:03:52 +0000

I agree with mike daniel about the cropping of the three photos. I think the cropping of the yacht makes the photo lose its calm and peace. I agree the stringbean crop is totally out of context to the original. I think the mustang shot has been cropped well and really makes the car the star of the photo. All art is objective and is always as they say in the eye of the beholder.

By: Dorothy Dawson

Dorothy Dawson — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:14:19 +0000

I do a lot of landscapes involving sea and sky. I am lucky enough to have a 12 Mpixel full format camera. If conditions are changing rapidly, or I haven’t much time, I get the horizon in the middle – as level as possible – and then play around with ‘rule of thirds’ crops when I get home. Sometimes the pictures actually look better with the horizon in the middle! I think there is such a thing as leaving a trail of visual clues as to how far away the horizon, or the subject, or whatever, actually is, also how high up you are in relation to your subject, etc, and the horizon height is relevant to this.

So far I have never been able to use ‘off the wall’ crops with wide-angle shots – just crop them so they are wide in relation to their height. Half the time, the reason for doing them is a fabulous sky, so you actually want lots of sky.

By: Justin T

Justin T — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:35:43 +0000

As a graphic designer I can appreciate the importance of a good crop, and the amount of ‘professional’ photos I have been supplied with over the years with bad crops, or ill thought out compostitions would honestly astound you. So, when I take shots, whether it be for myself or for clients I would prefer to leave a little extra land around my subject and crop it later as with the above, but only crop if it genuinely makes the image better.

The first image has far better crops within it than the one chosen, and unless I need a specific size, then I find that constraining the original aspect of the image helps it to become more believeable.
The second… well, sorry I think its dreadful, a landscape crop encompassing both women and removing the distracting feather boas would have been much better.
The mustang, again I find awkward, rotating the image is fine, but this is too much rotation, you should make sure the body line is perfectly horizontal not a few degrees out! I agree too that cutting off the tyre doesn’t help the image, and when cloning in Photoshop make sure you dont miss any bits like the red corner to the bottom left side.
If I was to say one thing it would be, duplicate the image before you do any work on it, you can at least start again if you make a mess of it.

By: Mikel Daniel

Mikel Daniel — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 02:09:38 +0000

I think the point made by John about having multiple angles on a good photo needs to be stressed. All too often, I see articles about rescuing bad photos. Part of the problem with that, is that for starters, they solutions often don’t do very much to make a bad photo better. Additionally, they don’t encourage you to accept that it is a bad photo, but also to stand back and figure out what you did wrong and how you can improve your photo technique so that you can get a better shot next time. Instead, slap a quick filter on it, maybe crop it a little bit, upload to your favorite Flickr groups and call it a day. Nothing learned this way unfortunately.

By: John

John — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:57:34 +0000

Hi Barrie,
I like the point your article is trying to make, but I think better examples could be used. I do think some of the other people who left comments are unnecessarily rude.
Also, I think it is important to stress the importance of retaining context of a crop, which I felt was lost in the boat shot. Unless of course you were wishing to stress the name of the boat.
Lastly, while cropping can be considered as a method to recompose a bad or so-so shot into a better photo, I think it is important to stress that cropping can provide a entirely new, good photo out of an originally good photo also. Some photos that I have seen have such great compositional variety that you could crop out multiple sections as great stand alones in addition to the original image.

By: Cottonelle Jenkins

Cottonelle Jenkins — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:20:44 +0000

Are you out of your mind? 2 of the 3 look better before the crop. You chopped off part of the tire you douche.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 23:59:45 +0000

@Valerie

I run into the same challenges with cropping. After much trial and error, now when I do my cropping, I crop for the picture and without any regard to the resulting dimensions or aspect ratios. Then, once I’ve finished processing the photo, I do my best to fit the picture onto a 5×7, 8×10, 11×14, or whatever size it is I am wanting to print to.

Depending on how the picture came out best, I will either center the picture on a plain white or black layer or I will drop the photo into one of the corners leaving a white or black border along the one or both edges. For the centered variety, the printed picture comes out with its own faux mat. For the other variety, I use a scalpel and straight edge to physically cut away the unwanted borders. Of course, if you’re just emailing or posting to the web, it won’t make a bit of difference what your dimensions are.

Good luck!

By: Judy

Judy — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 17:03:41 +0000

I am responding to the comment about aspect ratio. You can crop to whatever shape you want. Then by adjusting the image size and then the canvas size in photoshop, you can print the full image and then physically cut the print when it comes back. For example, say you have a square image that you want to print 8×8. In photoshop set the image size to 8×8 and then the canvas size to 8×10. Send the 8×10 to be printed. When it comes back from the printer you will have 2 inches of blank to cut off, but your image will be the size and shape you want.

By: schmeddy

schmeddy — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:46:03 +0000

Good . . . bad . . . strictly the eye of the beholder. Context people. Context. If I took the picture of the yacht because it is mine and I want to post a reference to it on a website . . . the cropped version is better than the original. It all depends what you are doing with it. You do not need to see the whole “thing” to understand it. That holds true for the mustang too. We all know that you should compose in camera. We all know that doesn’t always work. These instructions were meant for what to do “if.” The second photo . . . well, build the backstory and I’ll see.

By: TheLiberalThug

TheLiberalThug — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:39:10 +0000

I have to say, I agree with most of these comments. Cropping is hugely important in defining the shape, focus and weighting on your image – but these pictures do nothing to really illustrate this.

As mentioned already, the boat looks better in the original, as it balances a rule of 3rds well. The underwear photo has potential in the lines and rows drawing the eye into the picture – but this is broken up by the women standing there, and the cropped version looks pretty amateurish to me. Finally, the car image as a nice sense of diagonal division from top left to bottom right – this is ruined in the crop, and the car loses it’s roof, which again looks sloppy.