zuzanne Loc: Crawfordville, FL

I need help with cropping. I seem to be either cropping too much or not enough. Is there some guidelines for newbies like me on how much is enough or too much when cropping.

zuzanne

chelly89 Loc: Louisiana

this site might help a little with your problem


http://blog.shutterfly.com/7483/my-top-tips-for-cropping-photos/

Gavin Robert Loc: Isle of Wight UK

Zuzanne, there is good and bad cropping but it can be a personal interpretation at times.

Do you have some images to show your concerns?

ecobin Loc: Paoli, PA

Learn the Rule of Thirds and try cropping with that in mind.

Raider Fan Loc: Lake County, IL.

I would suggest that you go out and purchase two books. Both by Bryan Peterson and available at Amazon.
1. Understanding Exposure
2. Field Guide to Better Photgraphy .

These books are invaluable tools for any photgrapher and I encourage you to get them and read them several times. Find a good tutorial on the rule of thirds, understand it and practice. By doing so you will learn to take better photographs so that cropping does not become such a chore.

My .02 worth!!

saichiez Loc: Beautiful Central Oregon

Not sure what you are asking by "too much" or "too little" cropping.

And you may know what I am about to say, but here goes.

Try to compose to avoid cropping. As much of the original image as you can retain from the camera, will give you more pixels to work with on editing the image.

A simple for instance is this.

If you start with a 16 Megapixel picture, and you simply crop away 25% of the image, you only have 12 Megapixels left to do the rest of your editing with. Consequently it will not print as large as the original 16Mp.

Sure, you can increase the size of the image, but that will simply put you closer to pixelizing (seeing the actual pixels) as you increase the size. You are still only working with 3/4 of the pixels you acquired from the camera or 12 Mp.

More clarifications would be:

Printing an 11X14 print with 16Mp will put more pixels in each square inch of the print, than printing with 12 Mp.Therefore, the print done with the 16Mp will be higher quality, as well as the 16Mp file will be a better candidate for a larger print.

It behooves you to think more about the number of pixels in the final file. Then think about composition. Furthermore, it would be better if you avoid cropping as much as possible, by framing the image better in the camera lcd or viewfinder. Minimize cropping. It's counter productive to Image Quality.

In some senses, that's a similar problem if you have a P&S camera that has digital zoom. Digital Zoom is much like a crop of the image the camera could capture.

There are some captures you simply must crop. However, the motivation would be to compose to avoid cropping. This would be a far more efficient use of your camera.

As a bit of an aside, here is a web site with a number of links to composition and exposure links....

http://photoinf.com

zuzanne Loc: Crawfordville, FL

Thanks all. I will follow your advice on the rule of thirds. I have both the books already.

zuzanne

ecobin Loc: Paoli, PA

Good! Just remember that the rule of thirds is a tool - it isn't a "Rule". Some photos will be better with the subject at center. Your eye will develop as you practice & think about it - it will become easier. There are many examples on the internet to help get started.