 Heather M. Wareham |
Cropping: When Should It Be Done? Do you crop and then fix in Photoshop (or other image-editing program)? Or do you fix and then crop later?
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John P. Sandstedt |
Crop and straighten first. Cropping first is important because you'll change the total pixel count. This can impact some of the other Tools (for example, Auto Contrast.) Let's say there a lot of bright (but light) sky at the top of your picture, but that the meat of it is in the lower third. Cropping out some/all of the sky will focus a viewer's attention to the subject. When you begin editing - say, for color or contrast - the software will look to the strong part of the image and not be influenced by the overlying right sky.
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David A. Bliss |
For me, it depends. If there is a part of the frame that I know will be cropped out (distracting element, too much sky, etc.), then I crop it out first - what John said, but also because it seems silly to me to process pixels that are going away anyway. For my portrait work, I tend to crop last, because I usually save the files in 2 to 4 different aspect ratios (4x6, 5x7, 8x10, etc.). If you crop for one aspect ratio, it can make it difficult to then convert to a different one. I do all of my processing, and then last thing before I save, I crop to an aspect ratio. Then I step back, crop for a different aspect ratio, and save again (with a different file name, of course). I also have been bitten by cropping early, and then starting over because I cropped too much. So I really think it depends on the situation, but for the most part, I think John is right when it comes to distracting elements. Crop them out right away.
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BetterPhoto Member |
what a bunch of crop
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