JoeDios.com Forums - Semi-Basics of Cropping

Trench Viper's post in the main forum got me thinking. A lot of us think we need to get just inches away to get a close-up. Those who play around enough taking pictures have learned that one doesn't need to get up and personal with what they are shooting. You have to figure that your camera is ALREADY shooting at a HUGE frame size. 1200xWhatever. That's a big image. How big? Put it thru your photo editing program and make it 1:1 (or normal viewing size or 100%). You'll have to scroll EVERYWHERE and won't be able to see 85% of the picture!

Now, based on that lil knowledge that the picture is HUGE and there's a ton of area to work with, let's look at what we are working with today.

Now, this is the original shot BUT I resized it already so photobucket.com could host it. It has been resized to a normal 600x800 size. THIS is a normal size for computer screens. At this size, it's big enough to see but not so big that the viewer has to scroll around to see the image. If a viewer has to scroll around to see an image, then you pretty much already lost their interest. Resizing also takes up less space on your hard drive.

The point of cropping is to get rid of stuff you don't want to be seen by the viewer or it's just extra junk. In the case of Crancase vs Sonneilon, this would be an ok shot. But for me, in the course of the fight sequence, I don't need a lot of that shot. Instead of doing a close up (or closer up), I shot from a normal distance (Macro was still on) and would cut away what I didn't want.

This is what the shot looks like afterwards. Note that all I did was take out what I wanted and it automatically LOOKS bigger so you are getting your close-up! I'm focusing in on the action, not the background.

I also do this to crop out backgrounds I don't want as well. IF you saw what I was really shooting on, it wouldn't make the setting what I wanted. There ARE a few shots in the dio where you see what's above my shooting area. I wasn't in the mood to take that all out.

Cropping is a balance of what you are trying to show AND how much background there is. In this case, the action is pretty centered. BUT I have some scenes where I cropped it so there was a lot of background off to the side. In those instances, it's because I'll be adding sound effects so I have to leave space. Also, this is NOT a 600x800 shot. Due to cropping, uh, you just go with whatever looks right in terms of size. This is 600xSomething. (The computer programs will keep the dimensions for you so it's not like you need to over think about lengths and widths.)

This is simply a quick look at the WHYS of cropping, not the HOWS of cropping. When Lehsreh posts my dio, I'll be able to advertise it and you all can look at how I manipulate the shots to make it look the way I want.