9.8 CROPPING IMAGES

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Great photographers try to compose, capture, and then print images full-frame. However, editors and others love to crop images to fit unusual shapes in layouts, or to make the image more dramatic. It's like looking for a better photograph within a photograph. At other times, you crop to straighten a horizon line, remove distracting elements, or enlarge small portions.

To evaluate an image for cropping, make a printout . Then cut two "L" shapes from a piece of paper or cardboard large enough to cover the photograph you're evaluating. By arranging the L's in various configurations, and size and shape rectangle can be formed to isolate a portion of the image. When you decide how you want to crop, mark straight lines onto the print to use as a guide when cropping in your photo editing program.

As with film photography, cropping reduces the area of the image to be enlarged. The greater the enlargement, the more blur, grain, and other faults show. Try to shoot images full-frame so you don't have to crop them later. Professionals have always tried to so this, and it's only in photojournalism and the graphic arts where a lot of cropping goes on as editors and designers look for images within images.

The original image has too much dark space around the center of interest.

Cropping, cuts out the dark areas, leaving just the interesting part of the image.