Cropping shapes

beyond the blue

beyond the blue

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Neil
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I'm quite new to photography and sometimes find it difficult to come up with a pleasing crop shape to use. Some of my photo's are easy to crop (the subject seems to tell me what to use) but some just dont seem to lend themselves to a crop shape.

I know about rule of thirds etc. and I know that rules can be broken. I have cut out various shaped cards and hold them up to the monitor to get some ideas before attempting a crop which helps a lot, does anyone know of a good website or tutorial guide that might help me?
 
Do you mean height and width ratios when you say shapes or, quite literally, shapes? I'm assuming the former.

Adobe Lightroom has a "lights out" cropping mode which blacks out the whole screen when you're cropping and it makes a bigger difference than you might think.

The only other thing I could advise is to pay more attention to your framing at the capture stage. Cropping in post is fine, but you should have an idea in your head before you push the shutter release button (ideally)

Hope that helps
 
Yes I mean ratios. I once heard that there is a ratio oblong that is more pleasing to the eye than others, I cant remember of-hand the actual ratio, but it's common to credit cards and the like. I have seen ratios used on this forum that work very well with certain subjects that I would'nt have thought would. I guess it's something I will get the hang of eventually.
 
I generally stick with the 3:2 ratio of ,y camera sensor and only change the shape when I'm printing onto different shape media or I feel that a square crop works better.
 
Aspect ratios are entirely up to you, and what you like.

But the purpose of the image can give a pointer towards the aspect ratios most likely to be appropriate.
  • If you're intending on printing the image, particularly if you're sending away for prints, you need to consider the available print sizes (how many times do you send off for prints to find it cropped or with white borders?).
  • If it's intended for framing you need to consider frame and mount sizes unless you want to have something custom framed (expensive, standard frames and mounts are far cheaper - very important for images as gifts).
  • If you don't intend to print but want to use it as a desktop image on your pc you need to consider your screen aspect ratio and display resolution.
  • Special purposes have their own aspect ratios - website images, postcard/greetings card printing, etc.
If you've got Lightroom it's very easy to apply standard or custom aspect ratios very precisely and to export to the chosen dimensions. With plug-ims like Mogrify added to Lightroom it's also very easy to adapt one aspect ratio to another by defining custom borders.

(personally I try and stick to 3:2, 5:4 or 16:9 unless creating something that specificly needs a different aspect ratio - eg. postcards and greetings cards)
 
As others have said, crop size/ratio will depend on individual images and the format they're going to be viewed in.

I process all of my images in lightroom. Generally speaking they just end up in Facebook galleries so I crop to the size & shape that suits each image.

If I know I need to print the images, I will go through them again, select the ones I want to print and then re-crop accordingly.
 
I have been cropping to 6x4 lately as I print a few for the guys on the coach (hiking club) I try to get it as near to the taken shot as possible,as the shot I take looks not quite right when cropped down.

If you get it right in camera,it's one less job.
 
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