Your cropping technique?

Mark Edell

I was just wondering about the formula (if there is one) that everyone uses to crop their photos. Up to now, I have just been using the rectangular marquee tool and selecting a portion of a shot that looks astatically pleasing and cropping it. But this does not always work well with prints. Does anyone use a strict formula on their shots when cropping or do you just freehand it like I do? :dunno

<o:p> </o:p>
Thanks!

LiquidAir

I usually us the marquis or crop tool set to a fixed aspect ratio. Most are cropped to 2x3, 4x5 or square, but sometimes I'll crop 4x3, 16x9, 16x10, 10x4, 5x7 or 2x1.

kpoore

Cropping for matting?
This subject concerns me too.
When you crop in the Smug Mug process is there an automatic border applied to the print?
When I size/print at home I always add a quarter inch border of white canvas which allows me to keep the whole image and it fits in a mat.
e.g. an 8x10 mat standard has a opening of 7.5x9.5 so I size my image to 7.5x9.5 with a quarter inch canvas border making the photo size 8x10.
So if I submit this 8x10 will Smug Mug add a border of their own?

Thanks,
Karen

LiquidAir wrote:

I usually us the marquis or crop tool set to a fixed aspect ratio. Most are cropped to 2x3, 4x5 or square, but sometimes I'll crop 4x3, 16x9, 16x10, 10x4, 5x7 or 2x1.

digismile

Usually when I first look at a photo, I have a sense of how I would crop it and from that impression, I use the closest ratio between 4x5, 5x7, 2x3. That way I know that it will fit at least one print size.

As well, I always do my cropping in RAW. That way, I still have all the original detail should I ever change my mind.

J-N Design

I prefer to crop my photos myself before uploading. I crop to the aspect ratio of my desired print (usually 8x10). I use lightroom which gives me a choice of guidelines (thirds, golden rectangle, golden spiral, and grid) that i use to help line things up. It's easy to switch between the guides and I don't always use them. Most of the time I try out several versions before I'm happy. The joy of LR is I can always go back and re-crop to something else.

Ric Grupe

Cropping for paper size certainly has it's merits...but quite often doing it that way does not offer the best crop compositionally. Nothing wrong with a border (some prefer it) on a print.

When cropping strictly for composition, don't forget that most crops in most image editors can be rotated. Sometimes even the slightest rotation can do wonders for an image.

BinaryFx

While on the general topic of "artistic" or "photographic output" cropping, here are some Rule of Thirds and Golden Ratio cropping actions:

http://www.shutterfreaks.com/Actions/RuleOfThirds.php#Download

http://www.panosfx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=183&Itemid=27

http://www.atncentral.com/download.htm
http://www.atncentral.com/Zip_Actions/RoTs.zip


Regards,

Stephen Marsh

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/
http://prepression.blogspot.com/