BetterPhoto Q&A
Category: New Answers

Cropping and Enlarging--Stigma Attached?

But what I would like to know is whether, according to judges in a contest, there is some stigma attached to retaining only a small part of the image and magnifying it. For example, I'm editing a large number of photos I took of some interesting palm fronds, and am having a great deal of fun cropping small parts of them and applying different filters--and I really like the effects of some of them. But I'm wondering about entering any of the super-cropped and magnified ones in a contest. Would a super-cropped photo be looked down upon? Thanks for any advice on this!

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April 05, 2006

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April 05, 2006

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April 05, 2006

Which leads me to another question! What makes some photos larger than others in the gallery when you click on them? Logically, looking at the thumbnails, and also seeing that stitched photos are a great deal larger I would assume that the number of pixels in an image would make it appear larger or smaller when they are enlarged for viewing. However, though I may be mistaken, I do believe some of my "very cropped" images look just as large when you click on them as the others.

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April 05, 2006

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April 05, 2006

I was really glad to hear what you read Sharon! As I don't have a macro lens, I use the Rebel 18-55 kit lens and it doesn't allow me to shoot very close, and it has occured to me that though I can't go really macro, this does give me greater depth of field in the very close, almost macro shots.

Christopher, I'm talking about super-cropping, like sometimes retaining less than a third or even a sixth of the image. I may like the whole image as I intended it when I shot it, but then in the editing, see all kinds of other possibilities too that didn't occur to me when I was on my knees in an impossible position and my back was screaming for mercy... And yes, generally from what I can see, basically often the only indication that an image has been drastically cut is in the thumbnail which does appear smaller. You don't have to resize your images now to upload to BetterPhoto, it does it automatically and, being new, that's how I always did it until Ken Smith told me that they upload more sharply if you use the single image uploader, make the image smaller yourself and then afterwards sharpen some more. It really does make a difference! But I'm really grateful to hear the fact that resizing to 480 x 640 makes it appear smaller in the gallery than if you resize to 500 x 667. Often in this kind of cropping some of my images are almost square and have noticed that there's a lot of latitude on what the single uploader will accept and have wondered if just such a choice will make a difference. I opted for the smaller on a recent upload (and the thumbnail is quite small) and think I'll upload it again to as large as it will accept.

But actually, I've been really stupid--I've been so into what I've been doing with the palm fronds, I forgot that I did just recently have my one and only finalist which became a one and only 2nd place--some fish, for which I used probably less than 1/4 of the image and magnified and that was for the animals category. But with other recent images, I'm talking about like cropping at about 80% magnification.

Okay, guess the question is answered, and I've learned quite a lot from all of you---thanks!

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April 05, 2006

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April 06, 2006

I think the real question here about cropping is the loss of detail in extreme enlargments. Not having a true macro lens means you have to crop your photos quite a bit to get the macro detail you want. Sometime, cropping too much results in pixelation. In other words, the magnification is so high, you begin to see more of the actual pixels then you do picture. Same with film, only there you see more of the light sensitive silver halide that makes up the picture. Grain and pixels.
But don't feel bad about having to crop on account of not having the lens you want. I shoot a lot of wild birds and even with the 100-400mm zoom, I still have to crop the original shot quite a bit in order to focus the veiwers attention on the subject.
Even at distances as close as twenty feet, a little bird such as a woodpecker, comes no where close to filling the frame.
I say, so long as you are pleased with the resultant image, that's all that matters.

Bob

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April 06, 2006

Perhaps one day, after a great deal more learning, I may try to sell stock photos. Would such super-cropped photos be unusable for sale? I'll post two such photos below, so it's clear what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about cutting off a few pixels.

Both photos are part of the palm frond series I'm editing. In the first I liked the ends of the leaves, and consequently the image is probably about one fifth of the entire original image. Well, let me look... The image size is now: 1174 x 871.

The second one is even less. The whole while I was taking these photos, my thought was that these fronds looked so much like birds spreading their wings and I tended to compose and shoot the "whole bird" from different angles. But when I saw this one magnified, it seemed to resemble a sculpture of some mythological creature with spread wings, so I cropped it in that magnified state and the cropped image is now 695 x 593. Would stock photo companies or anyone buy an image that size?

As to in-camera cropping, I looked in my manual and I get the impression that the Rebel XT doesn't have this feature, but as you can see by the nature of the images below, it would be difficult to see such opportunities anyway without the detail that the computer screen affords.

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April 06, 2006

Perhaps one day, after a great deal more learning, I may try to sell stock photos. Would such super-cropped photos be unusable for sale? I'll post two such photos below, so it's clear what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about cutting off a few pixels.

Both photos are part of the palm frond series I'm editing. In the first I liked the ends of the leaves, and consequently the image is probably about one fifth of the entire original image. Well, let me look... The image size is now: 1174 x 871.

The second one is even less. The whole while I was taking these photos, my thought was that these fronds looked so much like birds spreading their wings and I tended to compose and shoot the "whole bird" from different angles. But when I saw this one magnified, it seemed to resemble a sculpture of some mythological creature with spread wings, so I cropped it in that magnified state and the cropped image is now 695 x 593. Would stock photo companies or anyone buy an image that size?

As to in-camera cropping, I looked in my manual and I get the impression that the Rebel XT doesn't have this feature, but as you can see by the nature of the images below, it would be difficult to see such opportunities anyway without the detail that the computer screen affords.

Hmmm... When submitting a photo here that's already been uploaded, it seems you need to enter the photo ID, and there's only place for one number--so looks like I'll have to do it twice...

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April 06, 2006

Perhaps one day, after a great deal more learning, I may try to sell stock photos. Would such super-cropped photos be unusable for sale? I'll post two such photos below, so it's clear what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about cutting off a few pixels.

Both photos are part of the palm frond series I'm editing. In the first I liked the ends of the leaves, and consequently the image is probably about one fifth of the entire original image. Well, let me look... The image size is now: 1174 x 871.

The second one is even less. The whole while I was taking these photos, my thought was that these fronds looked so much like birds spreading their wings and I tended to compose and shoot the "whole bird" from different angles. But when I saw this one magnified, it seemed to resemble a sculpture of some mythological creature with spread wings, so I cropped it in that magnified state and the cropped image is now 695 x 593. Would stock photo companies or anyone buy an image that size?

As to in-camera cropping, I looked in my manual and I get the impression that the Rebel XT doesn't have this feature, but as you can see by the nature of the images below, it would be difficult to see such opportunities anyway without the detail that the computer screen affords.

Hmmm... When submitting a photo here that's already been uploaded, it seems you need to enter the photo ID, and there's only place for one number--so looks like I'll have to do it twice...

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April 06, 2006

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April 06, 2006

I can't answer the question regarding stock photo agencies, but I think I can help with the 'in-camera' cropping.
What people refer to isn't an electronic or mechanical operation of the camera, per se, but rather of the photographer cropping during composition.
Suppose while composing that shot you saw the mythological creature, but in order for it to stand out, you needed for that part of the scene to fill more of the frame. You would either move closer and recompose the shot, or if you were using a zoom and still had some range left, you could zoom in on that particular area. In other words, you would have taken your original scene in the viewfinder and cropped out the unneccessary parts to draw attention to the one part.
Cropping in the camera simply means to enlargement the main subject matter so as to keep the viewers attention where you want it in the picture.
As a demonstration, the next time your in PS or whatever program you use, instead of using the crop tool, enlarge the entire image and then use the move tool or the scroll bars to bring just that part you want in focus.
Effectively, it's almost the same thing as done with the camera, you are enlarging the whole scene in order to focus on a specific part of it.
Cropping actually is the same thing. You are enlarging a specific part of the picture for emphases sake.
However, it is far better, whenever possible, to do the cropping in the camera. This results in a larger image to begin with which means higher quality as you don't have to crop afterwards.
Remember, anytime you crop the image with the software, you are enlarging not only the image, but everything else in it. Pixels, dust etc... And all these things add to the deterioration of the final product.

Bob

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April 06, 2006

But in editing, I basically do what you described. I pull the borders of the image frame out to about the size the gallery photos are, and then increase the magnification to whatever looks best and then crop exactly the size of the frame.

But actually, I do believe I've read somewhere that some cameras have an in-camera cropping feature, and that's what I thought Pat was talking about.

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April 06, 2006