About cropping ... but not the normal should you shouldn't you argument!

[Keith]

There's a thread just started about composition and rather than hi-jack that thread I thought I'd start this one on cropping ... for those who are comfortable using this method as the final tool for creating a visually pleasing photogaph ... read on.

Fortunate shooters who are trained or highly competent in visual arts (I'm certainly not) will know that composition tends to have the final say irrespective of how fascinating the subject material may be. Agonising over a crop to turn an image that has little impact into one that draws the eye has consumed hours of my time and I'm sure others have been through this same thing ... it can be incredibly frustrating. You feel that the image has potential but no matter how many different ways you crop it you're never quite there in 'that zone!'

I was reminded in a link in the other thread that it's reasonably common for artists to view their images inverted so that the subject material distracts less from the composition. I had a couple of photos that I'd been down this road of trying endlessly different unsuccessful crops with and thought why not ... I flipped them, cropped them and then inverted them again and was pleasantly surprised at the results.

I'd be curious to hear if anyone else has tried this and how, or if, they felt it improved the end result.

 

[Quinn Porter]

Cropping in Photoshop allows for all kinds of similar techniques. I've heard of people using a heavy gaussian blur along with contrast and saturation adjustment layers to get rid of distracting detail. The idea is to reduce your photo to a collection of shapes and other basic compositional elements. Once you've got your crop, remove the adjustment layers.

I haven't used these techniques, but perhaps I'll give them a shot.

 

[user237428934]

Cropping in Photoshop allows for all kinds of similar techniques. I've heard of people using a heavy gaussian blur along with contrast and saturation adjustment layers to get rid of distracting detail. The idea is to reduce your photo to a collection of shapes and other basic compositional elements. Once you've got your crop, remove the adjustment layers.

I haven't used these techniques, but perhaps I'll give them a shot.

Interesting Idea. I will try this.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

I've used "find edges" in Photoshop to basically change the image into a line drawing. Turning the image upside down in Photoshop also works well. Turn it upside down, flip it left to right, and you can channel Ansel Adams looking through his 8x10 view camera. 🙂

 

[Sparrow]

Viewing the neg on a light box helps, the abstraction highlights whatever design elements are there, or missing.

Composition is independent of content so if the neg or part of the neg looks interesting chances are the pic of it will be too.

 

[pvdhaar]

Just reverising an image doesn't work after a while. I've used an MF camera with waist level finder, and after a while you get so used to the left-right reversed viewing that that's the way you see the image. Even following action by 'dragging' the subject in the finder instead of following the subject (like with an ordinary finder) becomes second nature.

What works better for me is to look at a thumbnail, which reduces the image to just a few basic shapes. I get an instantaneous feel about the balance of the picture.

 

[Keith]

Just reverising an image doesn't work after a while. I've used an MF camera with waist level finder, and after a while you get so used to the left-right reversed viewing that that's the way you see the image. Even following action by 'dragging' the subject in the finder instead of following the subject (like with an ordinary finder) becomes second nature.

What works better for me is to look at a thumbnail, which reduces the image to just a few basic shapes. I get an instantaneous feel about the balance of the picture.

When I said reverse I didn't mean reverse as in a TLR image ... I meant upside down! It really removes your preconceived notion of how the image should look but I would imagine it wouldn't work for all images.

In regard to thumbnails I've always noticed that in the gallery there are images where the thumbnail is really strong and you feel compelled to open the larger size for a look see. Often though I'm disappointed ... some don't quite seem to live up to the promise of the thumbnail!

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Tightly cropped images with strong contrast look best at the relatively small web sizes, especially thumbnails. While that's sometimes the case with large prints, detail is often more important than purely graphic impact with larger paper prints. Really small images might work well for making cropping decisions, though.

 

[sojournerphoto]

Not quite a crop, but a couple of years ago a friend of mine picked up a print I'd been working on, but wasn't quite happy with, and turned it throgh 90 degrees. His viewpoint was that it's art, so it doesn't have to be litereal or representative and it worked much better that way.

Mike

 

[Sparrow]

When I said reverse I didn't mean reverse as in a TLR image ... I meant upside down! It really removes your preconceived notion of how the image should look but I would imagine it wouldn't work for all images.

In regard to thumbnails I've always noticed that in the gallery there are images where the thumbnail is really strong and you feel compelled to open the larger size for a look see. Often though I'm disappointed ... some don't quite seem to live up to the promise of the thumbnail!

Good composition has to be independent of size, what can be changing? The disappointment would have to be in the content, things can be well-composed rubbish too, I do it all the time

 

[gns]

Composition is independent of content...

Actually, in photography, content and composition are pretty much completely DEPENDENT on each other, aren't they? Change one, you change the other.

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Sparrow]

Actually, in photography, content and composition are pretty much completely DEPENDENT on each other, aren't they? Change one, you change the other.

Cheers,
Gary

Is that just a declaration or is there some sort of proof to go with it? It seems self evident to me that it’s possible to compose an interesting subject badly, or a uninteresting one well, just take a look at the public bit of flickr

 

[Al Kaplan]

Cropping is very much situation dependant. Seeing the image on a computer screen isn't the same as seeing it in a frame, or matted in a frame, and hanging on the wall. The juxtaposition of a group of pictures on a wall, or on a magazine page, how our eyes move around as we view them, whether or not there are blocks of text along with the pictures on the page, all affect the way we see the composition of the individual pictures. A large dark mass in one picture might throw it completely out of balance when viewed by itself, and it looks like it was cropped all wrong, but it works when used next to another picture. Colors bring another variable into play, as does the subject matter. A good art director can often take a bunch of what are really very blah pictures, arange them on a page, and create the illusion that you're looking at some really great images. Likewise, you can take some of your best photographs, frame them, group them on your wall, and the overall impression is "Why did he even bother TAKING those?"

 

[morback]

I wonder why we (photographers) always ask ourselves if we are "allowed" (who's the jury?) to crop/alter/modify our images?

The great old masters of painting did (thank you X-rays), but I don't hear anyone ask if they cheated...

Do what needs to be done to fulfill your vision.

 

[funkaoshi]

When I was taught to print B&W I was told to look at the image upside down or on it's side, so that you start to focus on the blacks and the whites, and where they are and at what intensity, versus the actual content of the image. Similarly I was told to hang your test print up and look at it from far away to see if it looks balanced, etc. Not quite what you are asking about I suppose.

 

[uhligfd]

When I try to assess my pics, i put them on a large table (large format prints), sort them out and walk around the table. And look from all sides. Then I notice many things I previously did not see.

Quite natural, Keith!

But I do not crop at all now. If I do not see the picture in the eye and then vf, if it does not gel and take it anyway, it will be poor, no matter what. When I was young and foolish, I did what you still do: endless hours in the darkroom, cropping over and over (and under) what was - in afterthought - not well composed in any which way.

So, Keith, just try to see images before you take them, then decide on lens (angle of view) and the exact composition. Only then shoot; the other pics are for the bin anyway. And on good days this works for me and on bad ones when I force myself to capture, I get crap mostly. So is life.

 

[shadowfox]

I wonder why we (photographers) always ask ourselves if we are "allowed" (who's the jury?) to crop/alter/modify our images?

The great old masters of painting did (thank you X-rays), but I don't hear anyone ask if they cheated...

Do what needs to be done to fulfill your vision.

Ehm... Keith wasn't asking about "being allowed", he's just asking if any others share his experience.

Furthermore, I think most of us do not impose any technical limitations on what's allowed or not, only some people are very vocal about what they think others ought not to do 😉

Btw, that's a cool avatar you've got 🙂 , do you have a bigger size I can see online?

 

[morback]

Ehm... Keith wasn't asking about "being allowed", he's just asking if any others share his experience.

Furthermore, I think most of us do not impose any technical limitations on what's allowed or not, only some people are very vocal about what they think others ought not to do 😉

Btw, that's a cool avatar you've got 🙂 , do you have a bigger size I can see online?

ooops, you're right, I thought it was a continuation of a different thread.
Ignore my foolish self!
🙁

(I think I got that image from ffffound.com, it's a bit too martial/aggressive for me but helps me find my way through posts...A quick search came up with this.)

 

[Al Kaplan]

morback, I just checked out your "this"...LOL. Perhaps some of those ladies would like to visit Miami, get really warmed up and not get cropped.

 

[JoeV]

I see cropping in "post" (either the darkroom or the lightroom) as a continuation of the compositional process that starts in the camera; it's a defining of where the four borders of the final image are placed. The time and space, "when" and "where", of the borders define the photograph. Capturing a bigger-than-needed image in-camera defines the "when" -- the time aspect -- and the final crop refines the "where" -- the space aspect of the final image.

~Joe