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[HOW TO] Crop your photos perfectly

They say the best camera to own is the one that you’re actually carrying, and now that all phones have excellent cameras built in there’s no excuse not to capture those flitting moments. But firing from the hip means that the resulting picture may not be perfect. And that’s just OK, because those large megapixel photos your phone is taking are just right for recropping into an awesome artistic composition at a later date.

If you didn’t have time to frame your initial shot correctly, for example, it’s easy to trim the edges a bit to make the photo stand out and bring a bit more emotion to it. You will be surprised to see what difference a beautifully cropped image can do.

Before we get to the damage control of having to crop images (for whatever reason), it is worth mentioning that most photographers subscribe to the rule of thirds.

If you image the picture through the view finder being divided by two equal horizontal and two equal vertical lines (making nine equal blocks across the screen), subjects should always be placed where these lines cross. Users of the technique claim that it creates a bit more tension and interest.

Rule of thirds [Image - CC by 2.0/John Watson]
Rule of thirds [Image – CC by 2.0/John Watson]

Software

Cropping images can be done for various reasons, but more often than not it is to remove unwanted elements from the frame, or to recompose the image to better reflect what is going on. It can also be done to highlight specific subjects, or just to change the perspective of the viewer.

But cropping images doesn’t need a lot of technical know-how, and you most certainly don’t need all the fancy photographic software that can be obtained at photographic shops. Windows has the really nifty, if somewhat rudimentary, Paint image editor, and Mac users can fire up Preview to crop photos. There are also a number of other free or open-source images out here, such as GIMP, that will do the trick just fine.

Work space

It can be really hard to successfully crop an image in its native resolution, so it’s highly advisable to change the working space to fit the whole image into one screen. This way, you will be able to see exactly what you are working on, and where the changes need to be made. In Microsoft’s Paint, for an example, select the magnification icon, and right-click the mouse a couple of times. The image should reduce in size to make edit more manageable.

Resolution

It’s always a good idea to be mindful of the resolutions of images, as you would want to keep them as close to the standard resolutions as possible. If you crop the photos to a different resolution, you will get images that look out of place. You also won’t be able to print your photos if they don’t conform to the native resolutions, as they will be resized and that will cause stretching or shrinking – and that will just look weird. But with that said, exploration with cropping to non-standard formats can also bring a photo to life, so don’t be afraid to experiment.

Save, save and save

It might seem like obvious advice, but while you are tinkering with your images, save them as often as you can. Even more importantly, make a duplicate of any image before you start chopping away at the edges or discarding bit and pieces. Many a good image has been ruined as the photographer worked on the raw images with backing them up first.

Consider different things

Most cropping is done to trim the edges, to remove something awkward that can’t be done with image editing software, or correct framing mistakes, but it can actually be used to create different perspective of the same image. For example, if you have a group photo of some friends, crop the image to only highlight two or three of them. If you have taken a picture of a busy street, crop it down to focus on a street sign to the right of the image. In done correctly, it can change the perspective completely. Just remember, most of the images that you see on the internet taken by professional photographers have gone through some form of cropping, so don’t feel discouraged if you can’t replicate their images through through the camera.

[Image – CC by 2.0/holdielow]

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