Cropping Magic Fun

Anyway it almost seems like magic.  It is definitely fun to create a beautiful picture from one that wasn't quite right and sometimes from one that was just wrong...

When we first bought our SLR cameras we took a couple of classes so we'd know what we were doing with them.  What I have seen in the last 9 years is that most of my learning has been through experience over time, reading articles and books, trying new things.  I am no expert BUT I wanted to share a little of the fun I”ve had with cropping.

Today I posted a picture of my valentine rose from my husband with tigger behind it.  The original picture had problems. I liked it the best of the shots I snagged of him checking out the rose but it had one main huge glaring problem:

That bottle of white vinegar.  NO getting around it siting there.  I was going to post it with it just because Tigger was cute and then I thought I'd try playing around with it a little to see what I could come up with.

I opened up my Picassa3 (I am doing more and more in my photoshop elements but Picassa's cropping still seems easier to use) and jumped in.  The first thing I do is use the zoom scroll bar(or whatever you call it - see I'm not an expert!) and zoom in and out and from side to side until I see something that I really like.  Something that grabs my attention and makes me go "Wow."  I have to say I do this sometimes with the zoom when I am looking at my pictures while they are still on the camera and then try to recreate in after I've uploaded the pictures.  There is also cropping just by choosing what you are focusing on when you take the picture in the first place.  I have to admit I didn't even notice the vinegar bottle was there when I was taking this picture.

Next I go the crop icon and click it and try to remember the spot I liked when I was zooming in and out.  I click on the picture and pull it to that spot and then hit apply.  If I got it right it will look just like the zoom I liked.  I usually don't get it right the first time though and hit the recrop button and try again until I am happy.

Here is the crop I liked the best from the original picture.

Here is another example of what a difference a simple crop can make:

Here is the original that I took from the backseat of the car while we were driving over one of the bridges on the Mississippi River.

Here is what I ended up liking:

Now you may really like your original picture and there can be another picture within the picture that would be great standing alone.

I really liked this picture of Z and his friends at the zoo last fall.  I tried some cropping and really liked all of the results.  Here are 3 of them.

One more example:

I liked this shot from our trip to the lake on the first day of school BUT Erin had fallen and skinned her chin up really bad the day before and it showed in every photo of her.

I cropped and came up with this and was very happy with the result!

So if you haven't been cropping or were scared to try much go and have some fun.

Be bold, be adventurous and crop crop crop.  Just make sure your original is saved and if you don't like how it turned out go back and try again.

I think you will be pleasantly surprised.  I know I was.

I just love cropping!

All photos were taken with my canon rebel xti.