To crop or not to crop

To crop or not to crop ? I was told that in cropping a photo it will affect the quality, as in the clarity of the image. so please what are your thought on these images / crops

1,


1, cropped



2,


2, cropped

Did you just crop or did you sharpen after the crop.

I always crop to the size I want in LR, adjust settings (Exposure, contrast, clarity, fill, vibrancy etc.) and then apply some sharpening.

If it going to printed it is then sent to PS for final tweaks and a touch more sharpening with Smart USM.

Also are you using RAW or Jpeg captured images. This is where RAW comes into it's own.

Steve

Her's an example of one of my crops of an image from this weekend


Original



Cropped



Camera Maker: Canon
Camera Model: Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Lens: EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM
Image Date: 2012-02-12
Focal Length: 32mm
Focus Distance: 0.8m
Aperture: f/4.0
Exposure Time: 0.0040 s (1/250)
ISO equiv: 800
Exposure Bias: -0.33 EV
Metering Mode: Matrix
Exposure: shutter priority (semi-auto)
White Balance: Auto
Flash Fired: No (enforced)
GPS Coordinate: undefined, undefined
Software: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.6 (Windows)

Steve

I crop quite a bit, and like Steve sharpen as a final act.

Quote
" To crop or not to crop ? I was told that in cropping a photo it will affect the quality"
unquote

The answer is yes and no, which isn't much help is it ?

Over cropping can introduce noise to a picture and over sharpening to compensate produces fringing( shadows) on subjects edge.

The higher quality of the original photo, say shot in RAW/TIFF, will stand more cropping than in JPeg fine, purely due to greater mega pixels.


Getting the picture correct in the first place is the first step, if the lens hasn't got the reach then consider getting one that has, that is the first consideration, especially if you are going to do a lot of work at that distance.

Ok now to crop or not

Is there something in the picture that ruins it and can't be "rubbed out" in editing ?
Is it really necessary to crop or is the original good enough? don't crop for cropping sake
Is there no way you can get closer to the subject?
Don't ever over crop it just doesn't work.

Just a couple of things need considering

Right now for the pictures

I think you have just about got away with the amount you have cropped but watch out for the "noise " problem, any more and I would be forced to say you had over done it. The place to check for fringing are the sharpest edges .

Wrote this for those here new to photography mainly

Bazza

I think we are in danger of confusing cropping with enlarging.

With cropping there are no adjustments to any pixels. You are just using less of the available pixels.

To use an analogy it is like printing out the full size image at the largest size it will print without scaling up the number of pixels. Then take the scissors to the print and cut it down to the size you want.

You do not degrade the image, you just end up with a smaller image.

What you have done by cropping and then making the resulting image the same size as the original is using less pixels per image on the cropped image and that will end up in some degradation of the image hence why I re-sharpen.

So what I am saying is that if you cropped by 50% then you should display that image at a 50% smaller size to maintain the same quality as the original.

If you want to display at the same size then what you are doing is cropping & enlarging.

Steve

I stand corrected, however increasing the size of a cropped picture, which I should have made plain, will have the same effect regarding noise.

Bazza

Thanks Steve for the info, These photo's was shot using RAW, although they were cropped they was not enlarged at all, but i did tweak they a bit afterwards. I use Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0.



This photo is lovely Steve, i think you have really captured that springer characteristics


Thanks mossy, that's what i did with these, but i didn't enlarge them.



Thanks Bazza, for the explanation,


Thank you for explaining it, I didn't enlarge these so hopefully i haven't damaged the quality.

I did learn some new to me stuff on this post and thank you Steve and Bazza for the lesson. I crop most photos as much for improving composition as enlarging. Shirley

Oh and did you notice the ISO in the exif data. 800, now that is high for me.

Encroaching on unfamiliar territory as an experiment following the recent ISO thread

Steve