Photo Tips: Cropping

[AndyJ]

TIP: Cropping photographs - Rule of Thirds and Motion

This first post is the theory on cropping, and the post below is a Step-by-Step guide using a free photo editing package you can download.


Here is a picture I took in the Animal Kingdom, through glass, of a Hippo. Not a great picture, but works well for this Tip.

I only had a wide angle lens, because I was on the way to the parade to get some character shots, and so this was the best zoom I had.

But not a problem, as most of todays cameras have big megapixels that far exceed the size needed for displaying on the web, so I can crop out what I need and not compromise quality.

Here is the original shot...



The first thing a cropper may think of doing in this situation, is to just cut our Mr Hippo...



Now, that shot is a lot better than the first, but can be improved in two key ways.

The Rule of Thirds.

I am not sure of the origin of this, or indeed why it works like it does, but it is well known and often used in the professional photography world.

The basic idea of the "Rule of Thirds", is that the main subjects in your photograph should sit on two imaginary horizontal and vertical lines. Like so:



Go look at many professional photographs with this in mind, and you will see it very often being used.

So in this example, lets put Mr Hippo on the top third-line of the photograph, and thereby give him lots of nice water to swim in.


Now this is again, much better... but there is one more thing we can do.

The Rule of Motion

What if we give Mr Hippo some space to swim into?

This, again, is a tip that seems to work an awful lot. It is very natural that the eye flows into a space that a subject in your photograph may be heading towards.


A few colour tweaks, and the final image:


Further Research, examples and discussion:
photospot2004.blogspot/20...of-thirds.html
digital-photography-tips... or-thirds.html

[AndyJ]

Cropping - Step by Step

Irfan View is a great free program for simple viewing, cropping and saving of your photographs.

You can download it here, quickly, as it’s a very small file (890KB):
tucows/preview/194967


Ok, once you have gone through the quick and easy install procedure, you can click on the icon on your desktop or start menu and off we go…


Firstly, use the File > Open menu to bring in your photograph.

It's a good idea to immediately do a File > SaveAs to save a copy of the photo so that you don't harm your originals while experimenting.

As the pictures a camera takes are usually much, much bigger than a computer monitor, you will probably have to click the zoom out icon a few times to get the whole of your picture on the screen.

Alternatively you can use this menu option to fit the picture to your screen size.



Now, to select the area you wish to Crop, hold down the left mouse button in the top right of the area, and whilst holding it move the mouse to the bottom right. Don’t worry if it’s not spot on as you can edit it easily.

To edit the area, move your mouse onto one of the lines until it creates a little two way arrow, and then by holding down the left mouse button again you can move it to fine tune the area you want.



Once you are happy with the area you want to keep, select the Edit > Crop Selection menu option and you’re done!

Now just save your picture using the File > Save if you followed my safety advice at the top, or File > Save As if you want to save another copy.

[Guest]

Great. Thanks for this Andy!

[Guest]

Very clear Andy, and what a great pic it turned out to be

[00swan]

That's great advice Andy - I've heard of the Rule of Thirds, but haven't seen it demonstrated.

Thanks for making it simple.

[DIBBadmin]

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