Principles of cropping?

I'm looking for advice on how to go about cropping my photos - not technical advice (I know how to use Photoshop and Lightroom), but artistic advice. In Lightroom, there are some preset proportions you can select when cropping - should these generally be followed? Are custom crop dimensions discouraged? What other considerations do you take into account when cropping your photos?

Jennifer

be sure to crop for the correct aspect ratio if you plan to print!

I crop to a standard ratio.
What ratio would depend on useage, I don't care, as long as it's constant troughout a series...
For instance here.
Some images looked better in a "wider" ratio then 2:3, so I decided to use two "standard ratios"; 2:3 and a wider one. But I made sure the ratio was 'either-or', to keep some consistency...

I crop so it looks better then before cropping

Good point. I crop to no standard ratio. That's why they have mats for prints. Standard ratios are a bit like standard food, no?
Besides, non-standard crops make it harder for the car guys to make prints from my images!

'49 Cadillac Series 62 Sedanette - BAD CAD ZEU$, a legendary ride!

Artisticly speaking there are many rules and the different crop overlays in LR reflect a lot of these rules, like the rule of thirds, golden ratio, etc. Many people don't know about the overlays in the crop tool of LR, to acess it simply kit the 'O' key and it will toggle through them while in the crop tool. As far as how you should crop, well, each image will require a different answer, but if you understand the basic artistic rules and follw those, most of the time you will have a better image in the end.

I crop each picture as an individual. Sticking to a 4:3, 5:4, 16:9 type of format limits what you can do with your photos. Sometimes odd crops can really make a photo come alive.
To keep the food reference going, why always choose the steak, chicken, or fish when you could also have escargot, calamari, alligator and lobster?

Custom crops will cost more in printing and framing but will give you a lot more in the creative aspect.
If you do a lot of small prints, stick with the norms.

René Damkot wrote in post #6135930
I crop so it looks better then before cropping

Exactly, I don't crop for convenience or to save a crappy picture. I crop because my camera's sensor only comes in one aspect ratio and one size does not fit all pictures. I crop to whatever I want based on what I think looks best. Many of my prints (and framed photos) are not standard/common aspect ratios. I also get custom framing to match the shape of the crop, as shoving a square image in a standard frame just looks wrong (and I have quite a few squares framed on my wall).

René Damkot wrote in post #6135930
I crop so it looks better then before cropping

I also agree to this.

Since I like "panorama" type crops, I have custom crops of 3 x 11, 4 x 11, etc. i also like 1 x 1 crops.

However, somewhere in the annals of photographic commentary, someone must have written, "Cropping is the first resort of the lazy photographer!". "FIll the frame" and "step closer" are ingrained in me, but I still crop a lot. I purposely shot wider than necessary because I know I'm going to crop.

In fact, I bet every single photo in my Lightroom library that has a rating has been cropped (and sharpened, etc.). None of the 1000s of non-rated photos are cropped.

There is a great PS plug-in for cropping using divine sections (Fibonacci sequence and harmonic triangles) here

That "get it right in the camera" is pure BS, how many of them print a 2x3 print?

PS was invented by god/adobe to enable us to do better than the camera can.