Cropping

You don’t always need to take photos at the highest resolution setting that is possible on your camera. But a higher resolution has at least one advantage: it allows you to crop out parts of your photo that distract from your main subject in case your composition was not ‘spot on’.

Most images will benefit if there is only one main subject. Many images with multiple competing subjects won’t work as long as you don’t give more attention to one subject and have the others playing a subordinate role.

So the first step is to determine what the main subject of your image is. One of the goals of cropping is to remove any unwanted or distracting details in an image that take away attention from that main subject.

Using this technique, you start with a very tight crop around your main subject. Don’t be afraid to cut off some of the edges of your subject in this stage. Next you gradually increase space on those sides where you feel your subject needs more room.

When cropping an image, you have to keep in mind that most subjects need room to visually breathe. If a subject is too close to the edges of the photo, it might feel cramped into a confined space. Though this really depends on the subject of your image.

Maybe an example can clarify things better.

This is what I started out with. I’m fascinated by spiders, but not too fond of them being too close. I already considered myself a hero for getting as close as about 5 cm to take this photo, but still, with my point-n-shoot, it came out very tiny.

When reviewing the photo on my screen, I got fascinated by all those eyes, so I started with a rather tight crop to draw in all attention to those eyes.

Although the first crop did focus on the eyes, it didn’t give much away on who they belonged to, so I needed a bit more space to show at least some of the spider. I tried several crops, two of them shown here. After comparing them, I tend to prefer the first, showing enough of the hairy leg to hint it’s a spider, while the second one to me already is too wide a crop.

Pictures of subjects in motion can benefit of a crop where the subject has some space to move into. For example, if a bicycle in your photo moves from left to right, you could consider giving it more room on the right.

But this is no fixed rule. Also the opposite approach might work sometimes.

• Work on a copy of your original photo so you always have the original to go back to when something goes wrong.
• Make several copies of your photo and do several different crops so you can compare them side by side.
• Cropping can also help you fix a boring composition. By changing the size of the frame, you change where the “rule of thirds” lines intersect, and can “move” your elements around a little bit.

For more information on this topic, also see the following TFTTF shows:

• TFTTF01 - Instant feedback / The perfect crop
• TFTTF39 - Subject space / Cropping