Is it cheating to crop pictures ?

[Panza]

Is it cheating to crop pictures ?

I feel that if I have to crop a picture to make it good then it is not as good a picture that I don't have to crop.
What are peoples feelings regarding this ?
I don't feel the same way about adjusting sharpness, saturation and light thoug. Not that strongly anyway.

[Conk]

Is it cheating to crop pictures ?

I feel that if I have to crop a picture to make it good then it is not as good a picture that I don't have to crop.
What are peoples feelings regarding this ?
I don't feel the same way about adjusting sharpness, saturation and light thoug. Not that strongly anyway.

No!

[Belmondo]

It's no more 'cheating' than it was for the film guys to crop a picture during enlargment---a very common and accepted practice.

[Jemook]

when will people get over this.

photoshop is a digital darkroom. get over it. you are allowed to improve your photos in any way whatsoever without having to worry about people saying - ahh you cheated.

what is crap IMHO is when people start using filters and special effects in their photography like beveled edges on borders and making the whole image black and white apart from an object which is in colour. sometimes it can be done right, but most of the time - horribly wrong.

go back to basics guys - less is more. you can produce a much more powerful photographic piece by editing your photo in any way, so long as it isn't detrimental to the original photograph.

if i dont make sense its 3am. :)

[Jemook]

just re-read, i don't mean to come across as arrogant or agressive. i just hate it when people think its cheating that's all. it's the same as a darkroom.

the only thing i can see bad about it is that it has cheapened the craft in the way that before only elitist photographers had access to a darkroom, let alone know how to use one properly. nowadays everyone has photoshop and can do the same thing so it's sort of made darkroom craft redundant in some way.

the same thing applies to graphic and web design. as a designer myself it aggravates me when people come along with no design experience and a copy of (insert adobe/macromedia product here) and call themselves graphic artists. it does nothing but cheapen the craft and field i work in.

I'm sure some pro-photographers are feeling that way as well with the advent of digital photography.

the best way to deal with it is to use the best of your ability to produce works that really stand out from all the junk out there. by the looks of it theres alot of people on this forum who are doing just that!

[GPR1]

I don't think cropping is cheating. Some photos lend themselves to image ratios that aren't the same as our sensor. Some photos look better square, or at least not in the 2/3 ratio.

[Scottes]

If cropping were cheating then you'd never get a 5x7 or 8x10 from a 35mm camera.

I don't particularly like adding or removing details from pictures - particularly wildlife - but just about everything else is fair game.

However, things need to be within reason - not so much for reality's sake as asthetics. I have a hard time changing saturation too much, but noise in an image must go, all of it.

[PacAce]

Is it cheating to crop pictures ?

I feel that if I have to crop a picture to make it good then it is not as good a picture that I don't have to crop.
What are peoples feelings regarding this ?
I don't feel the same way about adjusting sharpness, saturation and light thoug. Not that strongly anyway.

You might be better of exchanging your digital camera for a film camera and taking the roll of film to a photo processing place and let them do all that for you (it's actually automated). :roll:

[Jesper]

I've never felt my conscience act up because I've cropped a photo, blurred the background, changed constrast, colours, saturation or any other Photoshop trick... in fact, the Photoshop work is part of creating the art in my opinion!

[cecilc]

If cropping were cheating then you'd never get a 5x7 or 8x10 from a 35mm camera.

..... and that says just about all you need to know about whether cropping is wrong or not ....

I crop every shot I take. I shoot "loose" on purpose just to give me room for cropping .....

"cheating" .... ?? Cropping is necessary ......

[robertwgross]

Between the capture of the image and displaying the finished work, cropping is about the least offensive thing that you can do to the image.

If you do "heavy manipulation" of the image, some viewers will not like that, but cropping is more of a necessary evil.

---Bob Gross---

[aam1234]

Couldn't agree more with Bob.

Look at it this way: what's cropping compared to, say, replacing the sky.

You tell me which one is fake (hope I don't upset sky-replacers).

[robertwgross]

You tell me which one is fake (hope I don't upset sky-replacers).

The first one! No, the second one!

No, wait. Hey, which one of what?

---Bob Gross---

[Scottes]

You tell me which one is fake (hope I don't upset sky-replacers).

The first one! No, the second one!

No, wait. Hey, which one of what?

He said:

...what's cropping compared to, say, replacing the sky.

Bob, how can you constantly pick on people's posts when you don't even read entire posts? :wink:

[aam1234]

Ha ha Bob, you must be one of those "sky replacers" *



* Trade mark, contact aam1234 to pay royalties.

[robertwgross]

Bob, how can you constantly pick on people's posts when you don't even read entire posts? :wink:

I read the entire post, but the either/or was not apparent.

I've never replaced a sky in any photo, probably because it's a lot of work.

---Bob Gross---

[Volatile]

I've noticed that often people will boast that a picture is "right out of the camera", which tends to imply that any post-processing is compensation for poor photography and/or inferior equipment.

If I ever get a shot that is good right out of the camera, then I'm happy because it facilitates my laziness.

[Tom W]

Is it cheating to crop pictures ?

I feel that if I have to crop a picture to make it good then it is not as good a picture that I don't have to crop.
What are peoples feelings regarding this ?
I don't feel the same way about adjusting sharpness, saturation and light thoug. Not that strongly anyway.

Its no more cheating than it is to move closer or farther or zoom in or out - you're effectively zooming with scissors (or the digital equivalent thereof).

[Panza]

I've noticed that often people will boast that a picture is "right out of the camera", which tends to imply that any post-processing is compensation for poor photography and/or inferior equipment...

That was my thought too. And why I asked the question.
I'll stand my ground, but I see now that the majority of photograpers (on this forum at least ) don't look at a cropped picture as worth less than one which is perfect right out of the camera.

I must agree though that I too feel that replacing the sky and things like that is worse than cropping.

[Scottes]

I must agree though that I too feel that replacing the sky and things like that is worse than cropping.

Worse? In what way?

Replacing the sky and doing it in such a way that it looks correct is not so easy. (I would challenge someone to get one by me.) I think you would be suprised at the eye it takes, and the Photoshop work required is extensive. It is, really, a different set of skills combined with the same photographic skills. Photographically it's twice the work. Photoshop-ically it's much much more work.


Now, replacing the sky or cloning in something or moving pyramids AND not saying so is unjustifiable, I think.

But replacing a sky has been tried here, and it very rarely works.


So "Harumph!" to your statements about replacing a sky.


Now that I got my little tirade out I'll admit that I did do a sky replacement once. Described here (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=234590#234590). But I never tried to pass this photo off as "true" - it has always been mentioned as a sky replacement. It's not a crime - concealing the truth about it is a crime.

[tommykjensen]

But replacing a sky has been tried here, and it very rarely works.


Except for the one You did in Your tutorial ! :wink:

[Scottes]

But replacing a sky has been tried here, and it very rarely works.


Except for the one You did in Your tutorial ! :wink:

Yah, that's why I got so uppity. :)

[s00pcan]

I've noticed that often people will boast that a picture is "right out of the camera", which tends to imply that any post-processing is compensation for poor photography and/or inferior equipment.

You should always limit what you can do as much as possible by not editing your photos at all. For example, if your digital camera doesn't have a black and white feature, well you're screwed, you'll never be able to get them. And don't even think of underexposing a night shot on purpose and simply fix it using curves, no use that 1" shutter speed and limit what you can do. Because using photoshop means you are a retard and don't know how to properly expose an image and are a lazy point and shooter. Much hate to my elitist friend.

[robertwgross]

There is one photo manipulation that magazines try, and it always gets an uproar from the readers. That is a right-left flop. Often, a film transparency will look better on the page one way as opposed to the other way, so the editor flops it.

However, if it is some landmark or easily recognized mountain, everybody screams about it.

---Bob Gross---

[ohenry]

Unless you're doing forensic science or documenting factual artifacts, isn't the end result ART?

[Tom W]

Unless you're doing forensic science or documenting factual artifacts, isn't the end result ART?

That or news, sports, and the like. I'd hate to have news photos misrepresent reality because the editor or photographer wanted to present their own view.

[Tom W]

There is one photo manipulation that magazines try, and it always gets an uproar from the readers. That is a right-left flop. Often, a film transparency will look better on the page one way as opposed to the other way, so the editor flops it.

However, if it is some landmark or easily recognized mountain, everybody screams about it.

---Bob Gross---

Or if, say, Car and Driver magazine gets "Ford" backwards. :)

[timmyquest]

I'm getting tired of these people who keep telling me manipulating my photos is cheating.

I'm not reporting the news here..i am making an art form.

Now photoshopping a ball coming out of kerry woods hand to sell to a newspaper is un-ethical. But other then that there isnt much i should be able to do to a photo.

[jgbeam]

Cropping is indispensible! I shoot most shots knowing I will need to crop. One of the most valuable uses for cropping is in architectural photography. To avoid converging verticals all you have to do is make sure you are shooting perfectly horizontally and all vertical lines will remain vertical. But this invariably means you have too much foreground, usually a street or parking lot, which you simply crop out. Cropping is great for making all kinds of panoramas too.

Go crop a few - and don't worry about the photo police. It's legal.

Jim

[jgbeam]

There is one photo manipulation that magazines try, and it always gets an uproar from the readers. That is a right-left flop. Often, a film transparency will look better on the page one way as opposed to the other way, so the editor flops it.

Drives me nuts to see left handed violinists.

Jim

[Walkerjs]

Okay, so when you say 'sky replacer', you're not talking about people who just 'enhance' a particular portion of the shot, right? For example, I took this picture of a golf course with my A75:

http://www.walkerjs.com/photostuff/canon/south-course-view.jpg

And enhanced the sky with Photoshop thusly by making the sky a new layer (same sky, just doing the enhancement on the sky layer):

http://www.walkerjs.com/photostuff/canon/south-course-view-retouch.jpg

Both of those are saved optimized for the web, the originals are bigger both in dimensions and files size.


So is that cheating? Or is the whole bit of work done on this just crap anyway?

[ohenry]

Unless you're doing forensic science or documenting factual artifacts, isn't the end result ART?

That or news, sports, and the like. I'd hate to have news photos misrepresent reality because the editor or photographer wanted to present their own view.

My bad. I meant to include other factual events along with artifacts in my post. Given that I mainly shoot nature and landscape, perhaps I am less put off doing darkroom artistry than others. Portrait work has been manipulated for years...after all, where would we all be (those of us old enough to remember) without all those airbrushed women in Playboy? :)

[Cheese]

Serious Part

I think Timmyquest has it right in his post above. What most of us are producing is a piece of "Art". So whatever processing you do is okay. Whether it is post processing (enhancing colours, replacing sky, etc) or pre-processing (moving an item out of the way, or posing people before you take the image). It's all okayas long as you don't try to sell it as real.

Not-so-Serious Part

As to this flipping images left to right what is it with you people over there in the UK. Do you really think I believe those pictures of people driving on the left side of the road. I'm coming over there for the first time in a couple of months. So the jig is up. :wink:

Ron

[dpanicc1]

One of the main drawbacks with cropping is image quality if you decide to enlarge the photograph. You're throwing pixels away. Framing right the first time is the hot setup. But I frequently crop because the photograph is "crying" for it--and indeed the resulting photograph is better in many cases, but again, only if I have to.