Rules for cropping?

[Candice]

Is there an article somewhere that I can read that has rules on cropping? I ask because I saw a photo in the galley where they were discussing how it was cropped wrong.

Thanks

[DownByFive]

Hmmm, I don't think there's a cropping rulebook anywhere, but maybe I'm out of the loop. For me at least, cropping is a way of correcting compositional errors, and little else. Maybe the photo in the gallery was cropped (or not cropped) in such a way that it included some distracting element, or put the horizon in the center or something. But ideally, if you are careful with your composition, you shouldn't need to crop a whole lot.

Of course, digital photos also have to be cropped to get the right proportions for prints, but that's more of a technical necessity than a creative choice.

[glenpinn]

hi there.
i have posted my own thread here
digital photo printing resolution
and i too was curious about cropping etc, and what proportions do u crop at to enable your photo to be printable.
in my thread i mention that if i have my standard 1536x1152 res photos printed, the top and bottom of the pics get cut off quite a bit and actually print at a much lower size than the photo i have saved from my camera, it happens that the height resolution is affected more than the width, but it seems crazy that if your camera takes a photo at a particular resolution, then all the image on your pc screen should be printed.
this is why i wanted to know also if there is a guide to tell what size or resolution u need to crop at to print the photo (u cant print a cropped photo thats 1200x1100, thats way out of proportion) but the way i do it is i actually took one of my 1536x1152 pics and ran it thru the resize process and increased the resize rate by multiples of 5% till i got to 50% of the original size, leaving me with a list of cropping resolutions that i use as a guide for printing.
standard res is 1536x1152
resize it to 95% = 1459x1094
90% = 1382x1037
85% = 1306x979
80% = 1229x922
75% = 1152x864
70% = 1075x806
65% = 998x749
60% = 922x691
55% = 845x634
50% = 768x576
these figures seem to work roughly i think, but it all seems to be a bit of trial and error, but there are times when a photo needs to have something taken out by cropping.

anyway, this all seems to be very confusing, and ill just go get some lessons i think, might solve a few questions.

later everyone.....GLEN

[another view]

Glen, I think (the way I read the post) is that she's asking more about the compositional aspect of cropping versus the technical aspect. It is good to bring up because whenever you make a crop you have a smaller original to work with. If you were going to make a certain print size and cropped half of it out, then to keep the quality of the finished print the same, then the cropped print would have to be that much smaller.

There are standard compositional rules like the rule of thirds that can be applied to cropping. Sometimes when reviewing your work, you can find a stronger shot by cropping a little (or a lot!). I've seen people use L-shaped pieces of mat board to set right on the print so they can move them around and look for other compositions.

Basically, the rules of composition are the same whether you're looking thru the viewfinder or looking at cropping a print you already have. Look at books like Designing a Photograph or maybe some in the Kodak series.

[Candice]

Thank you! I will add that book to my wish list for now. I just ordered two books last week and am waiting on them so I will try to get through those before ordering more