To Crop or Not to Crop. Is it really a question?

Cropping is about getting rid of stuff that doesn’t add value to the image

Hello folks. The subject of cropping images has come up again recently so I thought it was a decent time to take a whack at the topic.

What Is Cropping?

Cropping involves selecting a portion of an image that you wish to keep and cutting away (cropping) those parts that are unneeded and do not clarify the intent and goal of your image.

Why Do People Crop?

Unfortunately the most common reason to crop is to make an image fit a picture frame. While not inherently wrong, common picture frame sizes were defined in the late 1800’s and do not represent a consistent representation of current sensor aspect ratios.

Explain Aspect Ratio

The aspect ratio is the length ratio is the representation of the length of one side agains the length of the other side. Let’s use the example of a full frame or an APS-C “crop sensor” The ratio of short side to long side is 2:3 calculated from the sensor size itself. In the case of full frame that is a sensor 24mm x 36mm. By using arithmetic simplification we can reduce 24:36 down to 2:3. This can also be expressed as 3:2, you just want to be consistent in how you use the ratios if doing a comparison. When we think about our common interchangeable lens cameras, full frame and APS-C have a short:long aspect ratio of 2:3 whereas micro four thirds sensors have a short:long aspect ratio of 3:4

How Does Aspect Ratio Related to Common Print Sizes

Consider that we can use the same ratios to determine optimal print sizes. For 2:3 the matching print sizes are 4x6, 6x9, 8x12, 11x16.5, 17x25.5 and 20x30. For 3:4 the matching print sizes are 3x4, 5x6.7, 8x10.7, 11x14.7, 16x21.3 and 20x26.7

Do you notice that except for a few rare frame sizes, the most popular frame sizes do not match any sensor ratios? This is because frames use the ancient 4:5 aspect ratio that is only found in glass plate view cameras any more, and those are increasingly rare. Why does this persist? Your answer is probably far less offensive than mine.

The Better Reason to Crop

Cropping is used to fulfill the desires of the photographer to tell a story and most strongly represent it. It is sadly true that many photographers don’t do this important step. It’s also true that since most photographers do not make prints at all, if the image is only ever delivered on a screen, the aspect ratio is only a guide and no particular aspect ratio is needed. Better photographers will know the aspect ratio of their cameras and work to leverage all the pixels that they have paid for, but sometimes a post creation crop event is required or at least beneficial.

Megapixels Don’t Matter

Since most display resolutions are so poor, then you can get away with cropping away a large portion of the image and it will still look good, particularly on the tiny screens of smartphones where most images are viewed. While we understand that the name of the game is to fill the frame, courtesy of my friend Rick Sammon, sometimes you just cannot, typically when you don’t have enough glass for the subject available. So in that case, if you have nailed your focus and depth of field, crop away the excess to tell your story effectively. It will be a more useful image and you can then decide if the amount of cropping has negatively impacted the viability of the image. As an example, Lightroom Classic is excellent for this because its cropping tool is non-destructive so you can try different crops and different aspect ratios. Your landscape may look more effective cropped wide but not tall, or your image of a single stork may be better tall but very narrow.

Printing Non-Traditional Crops

We recognize that the frame industry is not on our side. This does not mean that we cannot frame a print that has a non-traditional crop. A common method used for years has been to print with enough white space around the image so the final print will fit in a generally available frame. This works better than you may think. There are also techniques whereby in creating the print file you can place a key line around the image with a bit of white space between the image and the key line and more white space beyond it. This can look very nice indeed, and there are many tutorials on the web on how to do this in Photoshop. Lightroom Classic should do this but does not.

Summarily…

It is a rare image indeed that does not benefit from some level of cropping. It’s important to maximize the use of all the pixels that you paid for on your sensor but an effective crop is superior to more pixels that don’t add value to the image. Aggressive cropping can be a very effective tool to create impact and differentiation and you can still make prints even from an aggressive crop by using the power of the surrounding white space to focus the viewer’s attention.

Thank you as always for reading. Please subscribe to be notified of new articles and podcast episodes. If you shop at B&H Photo Video, please do so through the link on the main page. It costs you nothing and pays us a small commission that helps keep things running around here. Until next time, peace.