To crop on not to crop?

[Canyon Hiker]

I cant decide. What do you think? Any other critiques are appreciated.
Thanks



Darin

[EOSThree]

You are really capturing some great light now. The first is exposed much better, and in better focus, and the reflection in the water is really interesting. Again nice light, did you hang around for the whole show? Sometimes things get really excellent right after the sun goes down.

The second one isn't in nearly as good of focus as the first one. A lot of detail is lost in the trees, especially the trees in the background. The exposure is about 1/3 to the + side on the second one with the clouds in the center being a little blown.

[Canyon Hiker]

Thanks for the quick response. They are both the same shot. I just cropped the second one down to what it is. This brings up a new question for me. If I decide to have a large print made will it be not as sharp if I crop it down. I didn't think it would matter because I saved the Raw file at 600 DPI Tif. Or is this not as sharp because I cropped the already compressed picture #1 to get pic#2 for the forum? If I crop the uncompressed file should I still loose sharpness like this?
Thanks EOS,
Darin

[Canyon Hiker]

Is this any better?



Thanks again
Darin

[EOSThree]

It may just be from the small size you have to post here. I don't know.

I wasn't sure if they were the same file or not. With the second one appearing to lose detail and the second one appearing to be exposed differently I thought maybe they were two shots, with the second one cropped in camera.

[Dylan8i]

i like the uncropped version, as the litle bit of forebround element really pulls me in to the photo more.

[hminx]

I prefer the 1st because the dark cloud and headland on the left make this image seem more balanced ,

[gahspidy]

I prefer your first photo also. The reflection in the still water is the eye candy here.
The reason your second cropped image is very soft is because you have cropped and reprocessed the first web version photo. You should crop and create a new web version file from the high resolution file for each offering.

[jetrim]

Agree with the others, the small outcropping at lower right just pushes your eye back up the coast if it wanders over there, and the loss of that fantastic reflection really weakens the shot.

Also agree with what Gary said about the softness. This is what people refer to when they talk about image degradation in JPG format. It compressed the image and then compressed it again after the crop. Always better to make a new file off a selection from the original.