Crop this photo (Hit me with your best crop)

USAIR

I brought up in another thread that I could use help cropping.
I never was very good at it and it seemed to me you that you either had a good eye or you didn't.
Dee suggested that I post a photo and give everyone a shot at cropping it.(good idea Dee)
So here goes...if you want to post your own photo be my guest.
Maybe we will all learn something about cropping :dunno

Here's the first photo barn and silo.
It was hard to get a good shot of this barn too much stuff in the way.
Bushes,trees,wires,telephone pole and a dog that wanted to bite me.



And here's my crop of the barn.
I wanted to get rid of the bush on the right and the shadows of the wires on the right.
Used LAB to bring out colors cloned some of the wires and used smart sharpen.



Ok here's another one.
Old general store the van just wasn't going to leave...I sat there for an hour.



And here's my croped version.
I wanted to keep the sign of course and also the red roof to the left.
In photoshop I did the same as the above photo.



I should also mention how I crop.
I don't usually use the crop tool in ps.
I normally use the free transform tool that way I can also change the perspective and keep things stright too.
Not sure if this is the correct way but this is how I do it.
Any ideas I all ears :ear

Fred

Shay Stephens

USAIR wrote:

Here's the first photo barn and silo.
It was hard to get a good shot of this barn too much stuff in the way.
Bushes,trees,wires,telephone pole and a dog that wanted to bite me.

I would do a 10:4 pano crop. So much uninteresting sky on the top half of the photo.

Old general store the van just wasn't going to leave...I sat there for an hour.

Now this one is different. When doing location shooting, the idea is not always pristine isolation. I would not crop this photo at all. Leave it as is so you see the context of the sign on the building. It's not exactly a 5 star establishment, so the viewer would not necessarily expect to see an uncluttered scene. I bet the insides are just as interesting and cluttered than the outside.

But if you crop the image to just the sign, you loose all that context. The story is incomplete.

Sometimes the problem photographers face is trying to force a photo into telling a story that doesn't exist, instead of exploring the story the photo is really telling. That sets up huge conflict, and the solution is usually to crop away the parts of the "story" that don't fit the "script" in the photographers head.

Try this next time. Instead of trying to impose a story on the photos you take, try to illustrate the story that is naturally being told. Tell that story to the full, so that, when you walk away with a stick full of photos, you could create a picture book that reads like a novel, only without a word needing to be told.

For example, you mention a mean dog for the barn photo. I think that would have been a much more interesting story to tell than the "lonely barn and frozen bush" story that needs too much cropping to tell ;-)

USAIR

Thanks Shay never thought of it that way.
In the shot of the general store I was trying to get the whole store for a friend of mine.
He always said he would like a photo of that store...so mabe next time.
And yes the photo of just the sign does lose the feel of the old time store.
The real story of this store is inside and I will have to try to capture it sometime.

Here's me 2nd attempt on the barn shot...I couldne include the dog I was trying to keep him off me



I think it did help but I also think I need to reshoot the photo.

Fred

Antonio Correia

I would like to add the following.

At first I thought USAir was kind of joking about the composition.
He is not. Good.

One important step is to photograph composing at the same time.
Like shooting in RAW with the best histogram.:D

This is what I usually do.
Not now, that I have no time to because I am going out, but later I will post here uncroped photos and croped ones.

I think there was a better way to take the picture of the barn than that one ... You have to look for it. The angle, the light ...

Regards.

Richard

Hi Fred. Here's a quick stab at #1:



Simple crop from your first image, with a bit of cloning in the lower right to get rid of the cable shadows. The pano idea is good, but I think it needs more breathing room than you gave it.

As for #2, I agree with Shay that the original image works best. The only thing that bothers me a little in that one is the partial blue truck in the lower left. I tried a square crop to get rid of it, but didn't like it as much.

FWIW.

Cheers,

TomaS

Maybe you talk some local old-timer to park his 1950's vintage pickup outside that store - with a load of moonshine in the bed ....

But really would love to see a shot of the inside. Hope you get a chance to do it.

The barn shot needs something to give it interest. Better sky, a jersey cow, farmer's daughter, something.....

USAIR

Antonio Correia wrote:

I would like to add the following.

At first I thought USAir was kind of joking about the composition.
He is not. Good.

One important step is to photograph composing at the same time.
Like shooting in RAW with the best histogram.:D

This is what I usually do.
Not now, that I have no time to because I am going out, but later I will post here uncroped photos and croped ones.

I think there was a better way to take the picture of the barn than that one ... You have to look for it. The angle, the light ...

Regards.

Antonio I agree that the best time crop/composing is when shooting...get it right the first time.
But sometimes it just don't work out that way.
And I also agree that there is a better angle for that barn but I just didn't find it that day.

But I also would be intrested in how people crop the same photo differently.
It might just help me and others.

Fred


Fred

USAIR

rsinmadrid wrote:

Hi Fred. Here's a quick stab at #1:



Simple crop from your first image, with a bit of cloning in the lower right to get rid of the cable shadows. The pano idea is good, but I think it needs more breathing room than you gave it.

As for #2, I agree with Shay that the original image works best. The only thing that bothers me a little in that one is the partial blue truck in the lower left. I tried a square crop to get rid of it, but didn't like it as much.

FWIW.

Cheers,

Richard
Thanks for the stab looks good to me similar to mine but without the bush.
My first try was almost the same as yours but no bush and the barn was down to the lower right of the frame.

Thanks
Fred

USAIR

TomaS wrote:

Maybe you talk some local old-timer to park his 1950's vintage pickup outside that store - with a load of moonshine in the bed ....

But really would love to see a shot of the inside. Hope you get a chance to do it.

The barn shot needs something to give it interest. Better sky, a jersey cow, farmer's daughter, something.....

Tom
That would be nice an old truck would be great.
This place has become a bikers destination and on the weekend it looks like a bike show...always a couple of hundred motorcycles there.
It's a great place to hang out on the Ohio River and have a beer and listen to Bluegrass bands all summer.

Fred

Antonio Correia

Fred,
Will you please post another photo for us to crop ?
Obrigado.
May I post one picture with the same purpose ?

USAIR

Antonio Correia wrote:

Fred,
Will you please post another photo for us to crop ?
Obrigado.
May I post one picture with the same purpose ?

Ok here's another one
And Antonio yes please post one for all of us to crop

Thanks
Fred

Shay Stephens

Embrace distractions

USAIR wrote:

Ok here's another one

Ok, I see the pattern here. If I may add my thought here again :-) it looks like you are concentrating on removing distracting elements from the frame, which by itself is not a bad thing, but it is the wrong focus, if you will.

Your goal in framing and composition should not be to remove distractions, but primarily to tell the story. When you focus on removing distraction, boring details like a boring sky are allowed in with greater emphasis than is warranted.

I would much rather see the road, which is hinted at anyway (a visual contrast between road and farm?), than to see half the frame devoted to a lack-luster sky. Few things exist in isolation, but trying to force isolation on everything we photographer is going to negatively effect how and what we shoot. Embrace distractions and you may tell a more interesting story :-)

Antonio Correia

I croped the photo and placed a canvas as if the photo was was mine.
For me, the problem is that you should go more to the left for example and get that big volume at 1/3 of the frame, mantaining however all the houses in the frame.
The photo has too little of the road.
May be a little more to the back where you were...
I tilted the photo to the vertical.

I still don't like the photo very much ...

Antonio Correia

This is better

USAIR

Shay Stephens wrote:

Ok, I see the pattern here. If I may add my thought here again :-) it looks like you are concentrating on removing distracting elements from the frame, which by itself is not a bad thing, but it is the wrong focus, if you will.

Your goal in framing and composition should not be to remove distractions, but primarily to tell the story. When you focus on removing distraction, boring details like a boring sky are allowed in with greater emphasis than is warranted.

I would much rather see the road, which is hinted at anyway (a visual contrast between road and farm?), than to see half the frame devoted to a lack-luster sky. Few things exist in isolation, but trying to force isolation on everything we photographer is going to negatively effect how and what we shoot. Embrace distractions and you may tell a more interesting story :-)

Shay you hit ihe nail on the head that is just what I am trying to do.
I was trying to remove the road and just make a simpler composition but it did not work.

I will in the future try to tell a story and include what I normally try to eliminate and see what happends.

Also I just noticed that Nik has a similar thread to mine and I'll have to check it out also.
Sorry Nik I would not have started this thread if I would have see yours first.

Thanks Shay
Fred

USAIR

Antonio Correia wrote:

This is better

Very good Antonio that is the same as I would have cropped it.
And yes it's not a very good photo.

Here's the same but ir and hand colored still not very good but along the same lines as your crop.



Thanks for your help
Fred

Antonio Correia

Crop this one.
The original and my crop. Get another IYP.
This is my cousin and myself.

Antonio Correia

USAIR

Antonio
Here's my crop of your photos
I try to center photo with people.
Pretty much same as yours.





Fred

Antonio Correia

Indded. There wasn't much to do.
I could say it was an easy job.
However, let me comment this:
When I did my crop I tried to place the head of the persons on 1/3 from the top and 1/3 from the side.
Guide line ? Here or here
Sometimes we do have to break the rules, yes.
I try not to. Or get near by...:D
I will post another one soon, more difficult.

Antonio Correia

Try this one. I think this is not difficult
I hope you do better than this

USAIR

Well mine is a little different then yours.
I didn't spend any time on post just crop.
At first I like my better but after looking at both for a while now not so sure.
I think I might have the perspective out of wack a little.



Fred

Antonio Correia

Fred,
My photos have all - or most most of them - the same size: 30*20 or square like you did.
I prefer the 30*20 cms.
You did very well not treating the photo. I like your crop and, if the photo was corrected, tilted etc it would be as nice as mine is.
You do know how to crop after all...:D

Best regards.
I will post more !!!

Antonio Correia

Fred. Another one.

LittleLew

Got into this really late but I am fixated on the first barn pic.

How about a more graphic crop like this

ChuckWC

Here's how I would've cropped that picture from above:



It's interesting to see different people's take on the same picture!

ChuckWC

USAIR wrote:

I will in the future try to tell a story and include what I normally try to eliminate and see what happends.

When deciding what to crop and what to keep, I keep asking myself, "What story am I trying to tell here? What do I want the viewer to see?"

There have been times when I've cropped out an interesting object or person from the edge of a picture, because the story I wanted to tell was in the center and the edges weren't the main focus.

Other times, it's just the opposite: there may be a person or object at the edge which adds to the story, so then I'll keep it.

It all depends on what story you want to tell (and, yes, YOU are the story teller and you are the one in control of what story you want to tell).

Antonio Correia

Fred,
Will you please post one of your pictures for me to crop ?
Thank you.

USAIR

ChuckWC wrote:

When deciding what to crop and what to keep, I keep asking myself, "What story am I trying to tell here? What do I want the viewer to see?"

There have been times when I've cropped out an interesting object or person from the edge of a picture, because the story I wanted to tell was in the center and the edges weren't the main focus.

Other times, it's just the opposite: there may be a person or object at the edge which adds to the story, so then I'll keep it.

It all depends on what story you want to tell (and, yes, YOU are the story teller and you are the one in control of what story you want to tell).

I really don't think of telling a story when I'm out shooting maybe I need to.

I shoot for what grabs my eye which is usually a building,farm,sunset,sunrise,light and artsy looking scene.
I want something to jump out at me whether its colors or shapes.

So i don't know I guess that's kinda a story.


Antonio will post another one soon as I can.
Hope more will jump in.

Guess it's a boring subject..thought it would be intresting to see how others crop.


Fred

Antonio Correia

It's not a boring subject.
It is a controversial one.

USAIR

Ok here's another one.
Old farm house up the street I walk past it late afternoon every day.
Thought I better shot it before it falls down.
IR 717



Fred