Image Composition/Cropping Etc

[hokiefan]

Ok I am a newbie to photography and processing. I have a question that I just can't seemed to find an answer for. When I shoot photos and then prepare to process the photo there is some of the photo I may want to crop out to increase impact. Now the question is, do I crop just anyway I would like and then deal with aspect ratios later or should I crop for aspect ratio and then worry about the rest of the processing? For instance, I have a photo I would like to print 8X10 I would like to keep a jpg for my catalogue and print one out to frame. At some point I may want to print out a few other sizes as well 4X6, 5X7 etc. I guess I just don't understand the process I should go by in order to processing my photo. Perhaps some ideas on how one goes about processing for different scenarios would help.

Sorry if this a bit long winded, I am just a bit confused.

[OceanRider]

I find this stuff very confusing too.....there a few tutorials in here if you can find them thaqt will help. This is what I do....

I think it would further be helpful to others to explain the propper way to change this number when you do want to print. This is how I was taught using Photoshop.

First off, if I am going to print an image on my inkjet printer, I have found that 240 DPI is more then sufficient. If I am going to have it printed somewhere like Costco where they use a Fuji Frontier, I set it at 300 DPI.

Here is what I do in Photoshop:

1) Crop image to the appropriate proportions. I do this with the selection tool, not the crop tool. The crop tool does a number of things automatically that you may not want. Set the selection tool style to Fixed Aspect Ratio and set the width and height to the size you would like (i.e. 4x6). Select the crop area and click on Image --> Crop menu.

2) Set the DPI. Click on Image --> Image Size menu. Make sure Resample is UNCHECKED. Enter new resolution (i.e. 300 DPI). You'll notice the width and height will chage when you do this. Do not worry about it.

3) Set printed size. Click on Image --> Image Size menu. Make sure Resample is checked as well as Constraint Proportions, and Scale Styles. Enter desired width under document size and it should adjust the height to the appropriate size automatically.

You now have an image that is sized to a specific height/width for a given Print Resolution. Don't forget to save it with a different name so as to keep your original. I normally use something like CRW_5555_5x7.JPG or something similar.

[hokiefan]

Oceandriver,
Thanks that was helpful. I guess my confusion started with the who aspect ratio and then image size. Two different processes all together.

[steven]

Fully process you photo first. Get it the way you want it to look. Then save that as you master version.

Then for each size of print you want you then crop, resize, and sharpen to match you output size.

For crop I will crop to the ratio that I am printing and then resize to get the exact dimentions.

[hokiefan]

Steven,
That is what I thought in terms of size relationships and printing. Now let me ask you all a question. Say I have am image such as the one attached, and I want to crop essentially the entire left side of the picture, how would one go about doing so to focus mainly on the tree on the right side and the car on the background. The image will change dimensions and then I would have to re-size it to meet the correct dimensions for printing correct, including getting the correct aspect ratio?

I guess this where I get confused or not sure what I am to do in order to retain the highest quality.

This was a quick picture I took to get more familiar with processing than anything else.

[steven]

You have to make a couple of choices.

1) Do you want to fit a particular print size?
2) Do you want to crop for effect?

Some times these two can give you the same result but not always.

To do the first (at least in photoshop) you select the crop tool and then enter in the size dimentions in tool menu bar. Then you just drag you rectangle crop onto the photo, any old way you want. Then you start to move it around and adjust the size to see if you can get the picture you're looking from inside that rectangle. Remember you can also turn the rectangle so that it is no longer square to the picture edge as well as change it's size.

To do it the second way you just select the crop tool, making sure there is no dimentions already in the tool bar. Then just drag it around what you are interested in.

Once you have your image cropped how you want it you would go to image size from the menus. First check to the DPI to see if it matchs what your printer says is best. If it does not change the DPI number, making sure to uncheck re-size image box. Say ok to this. Then going back into the resize image you look at the size and make adjustments to that as needed, making sure that neither side exceed you paper size.

As to how to crop the image you have, using the rule of thirds is a good start. See if you can get what you want as the main focus into one of the cross points for the rule of thirds.
Also you have alot of lines in this picture so you might want to use them to draw the viewer to you main point.

I'm being vague about this because what I see and what you want to see are different and to tell if you have a good crop you will need to just try and then ask people to look and comment.

[hokiefan]

Thanks Steve, that helps. I will play around more this weekend and take a few more shots. At the end of the day its best to get a better shot and reduce image editing than vice versa. Still trying to get sometime to play around with my new toy.

[chris.bailey]

hokiefan - it is useful to say what version of Photoshop (or other program) you are using when asking this sort of question. Some advice on methods will be version specific.

I ALWAYS keep the orginals as orginals whether they are RAW or jpg. I rename my pictures by date taken and a three letter extension i.e. 130104001.tiff might be a shot processed from RAW to tiff. All of those stay in a folder called jpg Inbox or RAW inbox or TIFF from RAW. They are my digital negatives. I then have a folder called Processed and in there I might crop for an 8 x 10 in which case that will be renamed as 130104001_8x10.tiff. At time none of the 'normal' print sizes work with an image in which case I will aim to add a matt. For web reproduction any size goes.

Personally I dont like the scale to fit option in printing as you are effectively re-sampling at output stage. In the crop (Image>Crop) dialogue I will enter 8in and 10in in the size boxes and leave resolution blank. I will then look at the picture dimensions (Image>Image Size) to see what resolution I have neded up with. For printing at home I aim for 200 ppi and upwards (preferably 300). As long as its higher than that I leave it alone. If its a little lower than that I will resize using Bicubic Smoother as the re-sampling method. Adobe reckon this is a good method for changes up to about 60%. If bigger changes are needed I would either use a specialist add in (I use SmartScale) or re-size in 10% steps.

[HMetal]

1) Crop image to the appropriate proportions. I do this with the selection tool, not the crop tool. The crop tool does a number of things automatically that you may not want.

Can you give me an example of what the crop tool does that someone might not want it to do?

[chris.bailey]

Can you give me an example of what the crop tool does that someone might not want it to do?

I wondered that as well. I actually prefer the Crop tool as the dark shading gives a better impression of how the cropped image will look.

ANOTHER option for cropping goes as follows:-

Say you have an image where the resolution is 300ppi that you want to print at 5x7 and is currently larger than 5x7 at 300ppi.

File>New and set width as 5in and height at 7in and resolution at 300 ppi. This creates a new canvas at 5 x 7 at 300 ppi on a background layer. As the background layer in PS sets the size of the canvas....

Cascade the windows and drag the layer from the picture you want to crop onto the new 5 x 7 canvas. Using the move tool you can move the picture around and using Edit>Free Transform you can re-size it. The picture remains unaltered. If you create some basic frames of the sizes you use, as long as you make the centre transparent, you can then drag these on top of the picture onto a third layer. I often use this method with portraits as I find you sometimes want to alter the crop slightly when you see them in print, especially as a set.

[queenbee288]

I could be wrong but what I have read is that you should crop before your image adjustments except sharpening which of course would then be final step before printing.

Char

[hokiefan]

Chris.Bailey,
Thanks for your input I think I am beginning to understand a bit more. This weekend I am working on organizing my photos, and what I have decided to do is break them down by year, and the each file has a date associated with it, and within each year I will create directories for processed, processed for print and RAW. in essence processed would be images that are jpgs for cataloguing, RAW of course your digital negative and processed for print would be images cropped for printing. Only just recently have I started shooting RAW as I just bought a 20D a few weeks ago.

I am sure there are better ways to organize and work through but I am still learning.

As for software I am using Photoshop CS. For cataloguing I just began experimenting with iview and Portfolio, not sure which I one I like better just yet.

[snibbetsj]

Excellent info for everyone. I want to add my own tidbit here. Sometimes I need a crop which doesn't fit any standard photosize (4x6, 5x7, 8x10, etc). I go ahead print the crop I like and trim off the white around the edges. I also learned to cut my own mat boards which enables you to mat a non-standard size print into a standard size frame. It also looks better.