Crop it! How to make the cut

Sometime you take that picture thinking, "Man, that's gonna look awesome!"

And it does.

Sort of.

But....it looks so small in the picture.



Maybe you couldn't get close enough, didn't have the right lens on or handy or if you're using a point and shoot, this was all the further it would zoom in.

Well don't pitch that picture in the trash JUST yet...

Let's crop it!

First, your computer shrinks the picture to fit your screen, so whether you're using something as fancy as Photoshop or just the basic photo editor most computers come with stock, open the picture at 100%. Even online photo sharing sites like Photobucket have this feature.
This lets you see how much detail is really in that picture and if it's really in focus.

Let's say it looks good, now crop it.
Remember some of the rule/guidelines of composition like Rule of Thirds, Leading Lines and such so it makes a good picture. Get that picture you saw in your head when you were shooting!

Know your gear too. If you're using a lower megapixel camera and you crop it too much your going to get what's called "noise" or what was called "grain" for those of us old enough to have shot with film. If you crop it too much and start to get noise, it'll look like this:



Eh, that might pass for "artsy" and I like artsy...from time to time. But that's not what we're going for here.

But with a simple crop we can get this:



That's better!
Let go out on a limb and say your gear held out and your shooting was good enough to get a decent picture...
Let's crop it again:



This is the "I was so damn close to him that I couldn't even get all of his wings in the shot!" picture.
Your friend's jaws will drop at this. They'll ask you how in the hell you did this, how could you possibly have gotten this close???
This is where you shrug your shoulder and sniff. "Oh, you know, just skill."
They stare at you in amazement and ask to buy a print. (Hopefully, right?) And all you did was crop it. Suddenly, it's a whole new picture!

And you were getting ready to throw this one out. For shame on you! You're breaking you're mother's heart because you're not using your brain, you know that, right?

So put that noodle to work and do some creative cropping!



Click on that bitch. Look at it. It catches your eye doesn't it?
That's because it's a unique perspective. It's something people aren't used to seeing and that grabs attention.

You hear that? That's the sound of your mother's heart breaking because you were ready to throw this out instead of making a piece of art that she could be proud of you for.

Shame on you.

So, what did I do with mine?

This: