Cropping makes a difference.

Waterfront Park, Kelowna

The above photos all come from the same image (the one on the left).  Each one was cropped according to something that the images provided.  The left represents the full frame as was displayed in my viewfinder.  The middle-top image was cropped to accentuate the colourful flower display.  The far right image follows the rule-of-thirds and leading-the-eye compositional guidelines.  The bottom image captures the long rows of flowers decrease in size relative to distance.  Each shot emphasizes something different.

The point of the blog is to say that you don't have to get the photo exactly right in your viewfinder; you can play with composition after the fact.  This is where cropping comes in, and it allows you to improve, adjust, emphasize, or remove different aspects of the shot for its betterment.  

When shooting, I am always cognisant of capturing the best image I can at the moment but also aware that there will be post-shot enhancements and cropping that will be done later.  It is not unusual for me to take 100 or 200 photos on an outing and then pick a half dozen that I liked in post (in case you haven't heard this term before, "post" refers to work done on the image through a pixel-editing program like Photoshop or Lightroom).  

The nature of those changes to the image really depends on where I see opportunity for improvement.  Standard changes such as sharpening, spot removal, saturation, and filling shadows or toning down highlights are standard.  Cropping is usually a given, but you can crop quite a bit depending on what your overall goal is.  What is the frame ratio?  Will the image be printed or viewed only on a display screen?  Can you accentuate certain aspects of the shot by cropping out bland, distracting, or inappropriate material?  Do you want to use compositional tools to improve the image's overall appeal? 

Cropping an image represents an awesome way to improve a shot and make it what it could be.  Sometimes, you just have to play with it.  It seems that when you take the photo, there is still a lot of work to do.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com


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