lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

I also feel and am fairly sure many people responding here are actually talking about many different things as much of the thread makes no sense and is likely confusing the OP more. Even my own reply is not the clearest I might imagine, but like I said, I'm not totally sure what he is asking. This might have been one for the Ask The Experts section of UHH. That does not include me either by-the-way. Sorry in all cases.

ToBoldlyGo Loc: London U.K.

It sounds to me like they simply want to crop an image the best way possible. I don't know how anyone might interpret it any differently to be honest.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

A rule of thumb that I learned at our photo club is to shoot a little wide and crop in post. Yes you will lose pixels but only the ones you don't care to see anyway. It's better to have a bit more of the scene to work with than not. I have lots of photos that I took before I started post processing where I zoomed in too tight. Theres no room to crop to, for example, a rule-of-thirds composition.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

"best way" is meaningless, and Crop can mean several specific things in photography concerning camera use, software, processing, printing. One needs to think more deeply and read what was not written in the OP.

CatMarley Loc: North Carolina

To lose as little quality as possible, you should try to "crop in camera" as much as possible. With slide film, that is all one did - frame the composition in camera was all you COULD do. Then some minimal cropping can be done in post processing without losing a big chunk of those megapixels you paid so much for!

ToBoldlyGo Loc: London U.K.

Read what was not written? A specific question was asked. You don't start making assumptions if you're unsure, you ask the OP to clarify what they mean. It seems pretty clear to me.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

(1) Everyone else did!

(2) I kind of did at the start when I first said I was not sure what they were asking. They had not answered or replied to that, so everyone has just gone on with their own guesses. The consensus seems to be the "one" I initially gave and elaborated on anyway.

Also the OP did not ask about the use of his lenses or a tripod, but there seemed to be valid reasons for broadening the thread to that by other UHH members. Not my doing and many might see those as being off-topic. I certainly see how it is all connected.

So perhaps the OP got what they needed and there is no point in discussing me.

DaveC Loc: Illinois

“I'm shot some objects and animals by long distance and I need to crop the image to get the results that I want.
So, since I'll crop the image anyway, where should I do to loss less quality as possible? At the camera or at the computer? Or doesn't matter?”

Cropping in the camera will remove exactly the same number of pixels as cropping on the computer. There is no way the camera can squeeze those cropped pixels into the remaining image. So, Top on the computer, you have more flexibility as to the exact crop.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Good and concise reply.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

Crop at the camera when shooting in order to get the maximum size image; cropping a bit off after should be ok as well. I use Lightroom and in LR you can use the Transform panel to increase the size of the image without losing any pixels.

frjack Loc: Boston, MA

Shooting RAW or jpeg? What quality jpeg? Shooting RAW gives more mp for processing on computer.

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

If the subject doesn't fill the frame for instance, you might as well not even shoot vertically. Shoot everything horizontal and crop in post.

the f/stops here Loc: New Mexico

If at all possible, crop in the camera when capturing your image. When you crop in post processing, you’re throwing away quality. Say you’re using a 24MG image camera and you crop half your image in photoshop, you now have a 12 MG image. You just wasted one half of your quality.

armandoluiz Loc: Oppland, Norway

Thank you all for your answers. I will cut the image at the Mac so I can be more precise about where I can cut without ruin my initial idea of the composition.


As always when I ask something here I become more confused than before, maybe I should stop ask and try it over and over 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣

By the way, I shot RAW + JPEG FINE.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

As far as image quality loss, it really doesn't matter. Assuming you were able to perform exactly the same crop either way, the resulting image size, resolution, etc. will be identical.

However, it's far easier to perform an accurate crop with your computer, which no doubt has a much larger screen than your camera. Also, in your computer you can work on a copy of the image and save the original as is, in case you screw up the changes you're making. You probably can't do that in-camera... any changes you make are to the original and there's no "undo".

Also, if you shoot RAW files (Nikon NEF I think), those are better to work with than JPEGs... RAW are worked in 16-bit mode, while JPEGs are 8-bit. In other words, RAW have a lot more latitude for changes made during post-processing. If the in-camera crop can only be done to a JPEG file, then it would usually be better to wait and do the crop during the RAW conversion process.

However, when you press the shutter release, any digital camera initially makes a RAW file.... And when you set the the camera to "RAW" it saves the entire file. But when you set the camera to "JPEG", it basically does a very fast post-process of the RAW file in-camera... according to the settings of the camera such as contrast, saturation, sharpening, noise reduction, etc.... and then "throws away" whatever data the camera deems unnecessary, reducing the image from 16-bit to 8-bit and more. When you shoot RAW + JPEG, you'll see the difference in size between the two files of the same image. The data that was "thrown away" when making the JPEG might be important when you are making other changes. Final cropping and down-sizing of an image is usually one of the last steps in post-processing an image, so that other changes and edits are made with as much of the original data as possible available to work with. When you do an in-camera crop, you are essentially reversing the process and making at least some of the image down-sizing one of your first steps. And ending up with an 8-bit image, which will have less latitude to make additional adjustments and edits to later.

8-bit images have roughly 17 million colors... which sounds like a lot until you consider that 16-bit images have around 23 trillion to work with. Oh, and your camera actually captures 14-bit.... but software interpolates that as 16-bit (actually some Nikon capture 12-bit or have the option to capture 12-bit to be able to shoot faster and save space on the memory cards... But 12-bit is also interpolated to 16-bit during RAW post processing.)

Ultimately, for most purposes (printing, online display, etc.), in the end you'll want an 8-bit image and a file type that virtually anyone can view on a computer without need for add'l software... a JPEG. It's more than enough for most purposes. But in the process of making that JPEG, a lot of the adjustments and work are better done in 16-bit mode, before the image is reduced to the final JPEG. There are some exceptions where the image is kept 16-bit... such as commercial usages where a client may specify a 16-bit TIFF or PSD file because they plan to do additional work on it later. But for the vast majority of uses an 8-bit JPEG is more than enough.

Finally, think of a RAW file as a "digital negative" and the corresponding JPEG as the final print that's made from it. I carefully archive my RAW files just as I did negatives back in the days of film. I can always make another finished JPEG/print from them. The original RAW/negative itself is irreplaceable. If a camera converts the image to JPEG in the process of cropping an image... if it doesn't save a RAW original... for that reason alone I wouldn't use in-camera cropping.