Cropping Part 1: Seven reasons to brandish your crop tool

Cropping tends to get a bad rap. Purists view it as remedial surgery on a badly composed image. Pixel scolds view it as a waste of sensor real-estate, purchased at great expense. But, just like adjusting saturation or white balance, cropping can be an invaluable step in the post-processing workflow. Let’s look at some examples of cropping in action.

The high-resolution sensors and capture assistants found in modern cameras help deliver a high percentage of successful photos. But even with these capabilities at our fingertips, the image in our viewfinder may not accord with the end product we have in mind. This is where post-processing becomes such an important part of the creative process.

I suspect that for most photographers, cropping their image sits somewhere within the post-processing workflow. Whether it’s the first or final step in adjusting your RAW image, here are some of the reasons you might want to reach for your cropping tool. 

Cropping to correct a horizon line

Modern cameras provide photographers lots of help to keep their cameras level. Accelerometers inform us of camera orientation in tilt and roll planes via graphics in our viewfinders. We can see moving, colour-coded lines aligned with a capture assistant such as a grid. Nevertheless, occasionally, photographers take photographs where the horizon is not level.

This is more likely to happen with more rudimentary viewfinders, such as those in rangefinders. I did my best to level the horizon line in this photo on the left, shot with a 21mm lens on a Leica M240. However, it is clearly wonky. A small rotation/crop of the image addressed the issue in a jiffy (right).

Horizons are not the only background lines that might prompt you to correct via a crop. For example, have a look at the brickwork in the background of this street photograph on the left. It is filled with vertical and horizontal lines crying out to be perpendicular to the top and sides of the frame. Once again, a small rotation/crop does the trick (right).

Cropping to correct perspective

If you are like me, you prefer uprights that are upright, particularly when there are lots of them, as in this interior colonnade below. The uprights in the left image are clearly not vertical. I can correct this easily, using the perspective controls in Lightroom. However, this results in pixel-free areas beneath the image (centre). Once again, a quick crop sorts out the problem, leaving a satisfying view along the hallway, where vertical lines are now vertical (right).

The need for perspective control can, of course, be avoided if the camera is held perfectly level. However, unless you are seven or eight feet tall, it’s difficult to pull this off while also including ceiling detail.

Crop/Rotation — changing aspect ratio

The most common reason I crop images is to adjust aspect ratio. I much prefer to shoot with the camera held horizontally. This delivers a 3×2 format, landscape-mode image. But, for either printing portraits, or posting them on social media, I prefer a 5×4, portrait-mode image.

This crop and rotate manoeuvre is a breeze, provided I have allowed sufficient space around my subject by not framing too tightly. Here is a typical example, which is best viewed by clicking on the images. Even though the final image has fewer pixels, I still have plenty to spare.

There are, of course, other changes in aspect ratio one could envisage. One I often use, especially for abstract photos, transforms rectangular images to a square format. I love that cropping tool!

Creating a panorama

I do not typically stitch together multiple images to make panoramas. But, occasionally, a scene lends itself to a 16:9 aspect ratio rather than the out-of-camera 3:2 format. For example, if you want to emphasize a cityscape, rather than one particular object in the frame. Cropping to this format can remove uninteresting foreground and create that more expansive view.

The pair of images above illustrate two complementary ways of organising the elements in a scene. The focus can be on the river cruise boat, or encompass the wider scene, including a riverside bike path. The difference is best appreciated if you click on the images.

Cropping to eliminate distractions

When taking a photograph, it is easy to overlook a rogue object in the frame, which becomes all too apparent when you view the image afresh. Occasionally, these unexpected elements are a bonus. More often, they are a distraction. With today’s AI-assisted editing tools, such objects can sometimes be removed digitally. However, if they sit towards the edge of the frame, you can easily remove them with a gentle crop.

The shot below, of Pigeon Point Lighthouse on the Pacific Coast Highway, is a case in point. The rather unsightly building on the right of the picture could be eliminated by cropping whilst adjusting the aspect ratio. This yielded an image with the lighthouse placed harmoniously in the frame, with no ugly construction shed in sight.

Optimising composition

Sometimes, remedial surgery on a photograph is necessary to produce an aesthetically pleasing image. Perhaps the original picture was composed quickly, not following classic ‘compositional rules’. Or, as in the example below, was taken at maximal zoom. As a result, the subject of the image is not clearly defined.

Cropping the image improves the composition by emphasizing the intended subject. In this case, a crop places them approximately on the ‘rule-of-thirds’ line, with space ahead in their direction of travel.

You could also view this manoeuvre as eliminating distractions, adjusting aspect ratio, or even digital zooming. Inevitably, there are overlaps between these different categories of crop. 

Digital zooming

This is perhaps what most people think of when someone mentions cropping an image. I am a big fan of digital zooming to extend the effective focal length of a lens. It is especially effective with cameras possessing high-resolution sensors, and plenty of megapixel capacity. I have had a lot of experience using this approach with my Q2 and SL2, each with a 47 MP sensor onboard.

In fact, Editor Mike Evans and I posted a two-part series discussing this very topic.

But, when might you use this approach? For me, it is usually when I am physically unable to approach the subject more closely. This could be because of a physical barrier, such as a river, or ravine. Or, if I am sitting in the front row at a concert, trying to capture a close-up of the musician’s hands.

The example above illustrates just this situation. The second image is a massive crop of the first. Thanks to a stellar lens (Leica APO Summicron 50mm SL) and monster sensor (Leica SL2), the cropped image is still sharp and full of detail.

Inspiration

This post was inspired by an article I read back in July. The author outlined a very helpful framework for thinking about cropping, which I reflected in this post. It prompted me to consider how I have approached use of the crop tool. I realized that my motivations for cropping images almost perfectly matched his.

Mike Evans recently posted another crop article, this time focused on the question of aggressive digital cropping on fixed-focal-length wide-angle cameras, versus those fitted with an integrated zoom lens. It’s a more drastic type of cropping, but one that is gaining popularity.

If you would like to see even more examples of the crop tool in action, you can find the article here.

In the following article, Bill Royce discusses how to enhance the resolution of digitally zoom images. To whet your appetite, here’s a photo he took with his “2000mm” lens.

Intrigued? Head over to Bill’s article and have a look.

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