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We explain why you should crop your photos and how to do it. |
Just because a photograph comes out of your camera as a rectangle doesn’t mean it should stay that way. Many photographs benefit from being cropped to show the most important feature and to remove the unwanted area around it. In fact, cropping is the single fix that is most likely to improve your photos.
Your photo editing software will offer different methods of cropping your photos once you’ve downloaded them onto your computer. In this month’s column I’ll look at some of your options and also show you why you should crop photos yourself rather than leave it to your computer and printer to do the work for you – because that’s what they often do.
When a photograph is downloaded from your camera you will find its size is determined by the make and brand of camera. For example, a photo might be 1600 x 1200 pixels in size and every photo from the camera will be the exact same size. When you print this photograph at the typical image sizes of 4x6 or 5x7, you will find that your photo is not the exact dimensions of the paper. Accordingly, your software or your printer will crop the photo so it prints at the required size. Your printer or your software may not make the best choice when cropping your photo and you will often get better results if you do the work yourself before you print.
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This photo has been cropped in close to remove all excess image and the result is a very compelling close up portrait.
| In programs such as Adobe Photoshop Elements you can crop the image to size by selecting the Crop tool in the tool palette and then, from the Aspect Ratio dropdown list, select the size to print at, for example 4x6 or 5x7. Then drag the crop marquee across the photo - notice that the dimensions are fixed to the ratio you chose, for example, 4:6 or 5:7. Notice too, that even if you choose the largest possible image size, some of the photo is lost – if you don’t make this choice, your printer or printing software will crop this away for you.
When cropping this way, you can select anything from a small portion of the image to almost all the image. To finish the cropping process, click the checkmark button or press Enter to discard the excess image. It is also possible to crop a portrait shape from a landscape orientation image or vice versa. To do this, rotate the aspect ratio by clicking the Swaps Height and Width icon on the toolbar to crop a portrait size 6x4 or 7x5 shape instead of the landscape 4x6 or 5x7 shape.
When you crop a person in a photo, remember that it is perfectly acceptable to crop away pieces of their head. You’ll find that people do not really require the top of their head or all their ears to still be highly recognisable and attractive. When you’re experimenting with the crop tool, take a very harsh approach and see how small a crop you can make from an image and still have a pleasing result. If you don’t like what you’ve done, choose Edit>Undo to return the image to its previous size.
When you crop an image, be aware of the Rule of Thirds. Simplistically, this is akin to drawing an imaginary noughts-and-crosses board across the photograph. Crop to make sure that something of interest appears at the intersection of the lines or along the horizontal or vertical lines. The reason for this is that photos look best when the objects of interest are not centred in the image. So, for example, with a landscape photo, place the horizon along one of the horizontal lines – this ensures the horizon is pushed up or down in the photo. When cropping a photo of a person, position an eye, for example, at the intersection of the lines for a more active and vibrant portrait.
Using the Photoshop Elements Cookie Cutter Tool you can crop photos into interesting shapes, such as this star shown here.
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| In Photoshop Elements you can also crop a photograph using the Cookie Cutter Tool. Click the Cookie Cutter Tool in the tool palette or click Q to select it. From the Shape dropdown list select a shape to use. Click on the image title bar to select it (and close the shape list) and then click and drag the shape onto the image. When you do this, the image will be cut to the shape’s dimensions. You can resize the shape by dragging on its handles or drag it into a different position on the image before pressing Enter to complete your selection. If you view the Layers palette (choose Window>Layers) you will see that you now have only one layer on the image, which is the cropped shape. Moving the shape now simply moves the filled shape and does not alter the portion of the image encapsulated within the shape.
Whenever you crop an image using the Cookie Cutter tool or the Crop tool you should ensure that you save the image, giving it a new filename so that you protect the original version and do not overwrite it. To do this, choose File>Save As and type a new name for the file.
There are lots of shapes in the Photoshop Elements shapes collection which may not be currently visible. To locate them, click the downpointing arrow to the right of the currently selected shape and click the small triangle icon to open the flyout menu. Select from various shape collections such as face, flowers, food, etc. or click All Elements Shapes to select all the shapes in the collection. The shapes that show the largest amount of black will give the best results, as they’ll discard the smallest portion of the image, leaving you with a still recognisable image.
You might be surprised when you start cropping images very tightly and using shapes, as to just how different your image looks and how much of an improvement it makes.
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This original photo was more than half sky. Cropping it to move the horizon to the top of the image gives a more pleasing composition.
| USEFUL WEB SITE
To learn more about cropping photos, the rule of thirds and cropping for context and history, visit the tutorial titled Cropping Photos: Every Picture Tells a Story at www.caddpower.com/cms/croppingpictellsstory.htm
BEGINNER TIP
While it’s easy to crop photos using your photo editing software, you should always consider cropping them as you take them too. Check the camera’s LCD screen to see how the shot is composed and move closer or zoom to get a better framed shot. The more work you do in cropping as you take the photo, the less you’ll have to do when editing it.
MAC USERS
If you’re using a Mac with iLife 06 installed, view this multimedia tutorial to learn more about cropping images using iLife tools: www.apple.com/ilife/tutorials/iphoto/ip2-1.html
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