Putting pizzazz in your photos

Cropping
Preparing photos for the Web
Rotating your image
Adjusting levels
Adding a border (stroke)
Adding canvas
Cropping photos
Resizing photos
Be selective and be creative
Composition: The creative eye
Framing your subject
Neat effects
Rule of Thirds
Painting with light
Gremlins
Breaking the people barrier
Parting shots

The lost art of cropping
Cropping a picture—slicing off an extraneous detail or closing in tight on a face in a waist-up portrait, for example—usually results in a better photograph that’s more tightly composed, better focused on the subject, more directly stated, more engaging for the viewer.

But who bothers to do this anymore?

“Never crop!” is the mantra of certain purists. Sure, a great photo shouldn’t be savaged by visually illiterate types. A writer will, after all, condense and sharpen a paragraph.

But cropping isn’t dead. It’s coming back by way of cropping tools provided in every image-editing and desktop publishing program. What’s more, you can view before and after versions simultaneously.

Credit: Popular Photography, May 2001

The crop heard round the world: The full frame of Arnold Newman’s renowned study of the piercing gaze of Pablo Picasso was, ironically, just the sort of framing and composition that Picasso used in many of his own photos. Taken in 1954 in Picasso’s studio in Vallauris, France, the image was probably made with a six-inch (moderate wide-angle) lens. “I wanted to have space,” Newman recalls. “Because you would have this powerful man coming out of space, I felt it worked, except the more I looked at the proofs, I kept saying what a fantastic expression.” Newman added the white cropping lines (ordinarily he would just use pencil) as an illustration for his book One Mind’s Eye.

The Gaze, Concentrated: “I photographed God knows how many presidents, prime ministers, and he’s the only one that had that kind of piercing glance,” says Newman. “And I said, what happens if I just concentrate on that intense look? The more I looked at it, the more I thought, the rest is superfluous. I came in close, and all I could say is wow!”

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The basic crop—trimming unwanted detail: “I would say never crop unless it’s an emergency!” says travel shooter Bob Krist. Here, Krist was shooting handheld at the Philadelphia Mummers Day Parade to catch marchers as they moved through bands of winter sunlight raking through tall buildings. “I tried to scan the edges of the frame before I shot to eliminate clutter, but with moving subjects, a zoom that stopped at 200mm, and limited shooting positions, I got stuck with some clutter at the edges of the frame. That’s when I crop.”

Clutter, canned: While ordinarily Krist simply marks his suggested cropping on a slide mount, in this case he scanned the image and cropped the picture in Photoshop. The crop eliminates the background noise—traffic lights, buildings, patches of sky—but also achieves something else. By cropping into the edges of the feathery costumes, it makes them into a photographic backdrop, popping the banjo players out into a foreground layer.

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Cropping for color concentration: Marc Muench was driving along the Last Dollar Road in Colorado in October, scouting for images of autumn foliage. He made this initial image on Fujichrome Velvia with a handheld Pentax and 300mm lens wide open. The 300mm was the longest lens Muench had, so he took the shot, knowing he would crop later for the central portion of the frame. While the diagonal slice of evergreens at the top adds something of a design element, it distracts from the true subject of the picture—color. The picture also has a random quality to it, with the evergreens at the left edge pulling the eye from the center.

Tighter and brighter: Two evergreens form a simple diagonal at sweet spots within a sea of gold. The slightly darker area in the break of the trees at the bottom doesn’t distract so much as it draws the eye into the frame. This, Muench said, was the picture he envisioned. Although traditional medium-format film gave Muench sufficient area to crop tight, he used digital scanning and Photoshop to create the new framing.

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Cropping for commercial considerations: Steven Hirsch, on assignment for the New York Post, was asked to photograph the flooding caused by Hurricane Floyd in September 1999. With a tip from the police radio that storm sewers were backing up in lower Manhattan's SoHo, Hirsch took his Nikon 950 to West Broadway, where he was able to get one frame of a speedy bike messenger slogging through the floodwaters. “Considering this might be a cover shot, I immediately realized the framing was too wide,” Hirsch recalls.

In-computer crop: Later, on his home Mac, Hirsch cropped the image tighter in Photoshop. By eliminating the car parked in the distance at left in the frame, the crop strengthens the impression that the entire street is flooded, not just one section. The vertical framing also concentrates the eye on the splashing cyclist and places the waterline fully two-thirds of the way up the frame, which reinforces the perception of water, water everywhere.

Read all about it: After receiving the transmitted image, Post editors cropped it with the cyclist at the side of the frame in order to drop headline type into the picture. Note how the composition was diagonally arrayed to fit the type in as a graphic element.

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Preparing photos for the Web
IMPORTANT! Make a copy to work on! That way, if you mess up, you can go back to the original. You can save multiple versions of your image by using File>Save As.

Review the Photoshop tutorial at http://journalism.berkeley.edu/multimedia/tutorials/photoshop/

1. Open the image in Photoshop. It’s generally best to work on a full-resolution image until you’re ready for the final reduction in size and resolution, so save it as a Photoshop document (.psd), no compression.

2. Keep saving your work (Apple + s) in case your computer crashes.

3. To make sure the mode is RGB, go to Image>Mode. If it’s not, change the mode to RGB.

Rotating your image
If the picture is upside-down, sideways, or reversed, go to Image > Rotate Canvas. Select the amount you want to rotate.

The UNDO command is your friend. Once you’ve made any change, you can always toggle back and forth between the before and after, to ensure you like what you've done before you make the edit permanent. UNDO is accessed either with the Command-Z key (Ctrl-Z for Windows users) combination or by selecting Undo from the Edit menu.

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Adjusting levels
1. To adjust the light and dark tones, go to Image>Adjustments>Levels.

2. Move the left slider to the left side of the mountain (histogram).

3. Move the right slider to the right side of the mountain. If you get yourself in too deep, just click Cancel.

4. If the image is too dark, grab the middle slider, and crank it to the left a bit so it lightens the middle tones. You might want to readjust the left slider a touch after this midpoint adjustment.

5. If your image is too blue, for example, you can click on the Channel selector and choose blue. Experiment with moving the left, right, and middle sliders. Try red and green as well.

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Adding a border (stroke)
1. Window>Layers

2. Click on the “f” in the circle at the bottom of the layers palette or go to Styles>Stroke.

IMPORTANT! Click on the layer with the word “Stroke”; don’t just check the little box.

3. Try 1 pixel (a thin border) and inside. IMPORTANT! Be sure you select “Inside”! Use the color picker to change the red default color.

If a layer is locked, double-click on the name of the layer, such “Background.” Then double-click on the renamed layer.

Adding canvas
1. Image > Canvas Size.

2. If your photo is a vertical that’s 400 pixels wide, for example, you want to add canvas on the right and left sides of the picture. You do that by increasing the width of the canvas, not of the photo. Make sure you’re working in pixels, not inches. Change inches to pixels with the dropdown menu. Then change the Width to 640 pixels (or whatever your measurement is).

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Cropping photos

Thanks to Mindy McAdams, University of Florida

Use the Crop tool (left side of toolbar) to remove unwanted areas of photos for your home page. If necessary, drag the lower right corner of your window down and to the right to enlarge your working area.

1. Place the cropping cursor at one corner of the image. Click and drag diagonally, creating a horizontal box around the part of the image you want to keep. You can adjust the crop by moving the handles on its edges.

2. When you like the crop, press RETURN, double-click inside the cropped image itself, or select Imager>Crop.

If you get nervous, you can get out of crop mode by hitting Escape or backtracking in the History palette.

You can preset the size, such as for thumbnails that are all the same (100 pixels x 65 pixels, for example).

IMPORTANT! Most photographers would prefer their images not to be cropped at all. If your crop substantially changes the image, take care to keep the most important elements in their authentic relationship to their context. In the interest of journalist ethics, don’t do a crop that changes the perceived meaning of a photo.

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Resizing photos
1. Image > Image Size. A dialogue box will open.

2. Make sure the width and height are linked (right side). If you don’t see the little chain link, check the box labeled “Constrain Proportions.” Then change the width or height. For your home page, change the width to 300 pixels. Click OK.

3. IMPORTANT! Don’t do this until you’re happy with your image. Every time you resave a JPEG, you lose some quality. File > Save for Web. Click the 4-Up tab at the upper left to compare several different compression settings. The upper-left pane shows the quality of your original image. The other three panes allow you to experiment with different compression settings.

4. On the right side, make sure JPEG and Optimized are selected. Click on another pane and select JPEG High. Move the slider to change the Quality to about 60. Move the slider up and down a bit to adjust the download time, which shows up underneath each image. A ratio around 60 will usually give you the best filesize-quality ratio in a wide range of situations, though it isn’t always a magic bullet. The higher the quality, the larger the file size. The smaller the file size the better, so long as you keep the quality up.

5. Click on another pane, then choose JPEG Medium. Make sure Optimized is checked. Adjust the Quality slider to a higher or lower compression.

6. Compare the quality of the images with the original. Click Save.

IMPORTANT! Save each image to the images folder inside your website folder.

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Be selective and be creative
You can take great pictures with a point-and-shoot camera. The ability to shoot great photos isn’t determined by type of equipment you have any more than a Steinway piano enables you to play like Horowitz or Van Cliburn.

To take great photos, you need to learn the principles of composition, but think of them as guidelines rather than hard-and-fast rules. Once you know the principles, feel free to break them and be creative. Sometimes experimenting and breaking the rules will give you your best shots.

Instead of photographing everything in sight, which is neither fun nor practical, choose your shots carefully and thoughtfully. Before you shoot, ask yourself:

The focus of these questions is mainly aesthetic. The creative value of an image is ultimately very important, but first it must be sound in both composition and technical quality. So let’s backtrack and consider some important elements of design.

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Composition: The creative eye
Though the principles of composition are often presented as hard and fast rules, it’s better to consider them as important guidelines rather than as rules that must be followed. Sometimes breaking rules results in an especially creative presentation. Photographs would be very dull indeed if all you did was follow a set of rules!

Why bother with composition? Why not just shoot spontaneously, without thinking about what you’re doing? Well, understanding and using the principles of composition helps you see beyond the eye of the camera and into the vision—the mind—of the viewer.

Think of the shape of your viewfinder as your frame, and try to make an interesting, artistic composition that reflects your personal sense of design. Good photography, like good writing, lets your personality and your vision shine.

Here are several ideas that may help you achieve a pleasing composition:

• Don’t get stuck in “horizontal hold.” Every time you’re about to take a picture, check to see how it would look as a vertical. Scenery often looks best in horizontals, but a portrait or any subject taller than it is wide may call for a vertical.

• Try different lenses. A telephoto crops the foreground and tightens up the image. A wide angle emphasizes the foreground and deemphasizes the background.

• Keep the background simple, and isolate your subject to avoid confusion. If the foreground doesn’t add to the photo, crop it by walking closer to the subject or by using a telephoto lens.

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Framing your subject
Framing your subject with branches, archways, or shafts of wheat calls attention to it. Don’t be afraid to let the frame occupy most of the image at times. Framing also adds depth and interest and pulls the viewer’s eyes into the photo. Don’t overdo it. Framing can become a cliché if overused.

• Have your subject move into the frame. If the subject is going out of the frame, the viewer’s eye travels out of the picture.

• A small spot of vivid color creates a center of interest if backed with large areas of duller tones. A patch of white works the same way.

• Triangular patterns are good for group portraits. They concentrate
attention and keep the eye in the photograph.

• Diagonal lines suggest energy and action, while curved lines signal
grace, youthful energy, and flowing movement. Strong leading lines
take the eye into the picture and add depth.

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Rule of Thirds
• Divide the image into thirds both horizontally and vertically. Where the lines cross are the four “sweet spots” near which you should try to place the main or subsidiary subjects.

• Place the horizon one-third from the bottom or one-third from the top, but always keep in mind your own personal taste and sense of design. If you like horizon lines smack dab in the middle of your photo, that’s OK too, and in some cases it’s the option that works best.

• Look for contrasts between light and dark, smooth and rough, one
pattern to another, red against green or blue.

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Neat effects
• Tiny subjects can grab the viewer’s attention, even if they don’t come close to filling the frame.

• Opposite works as well. Fill the frame. Before you shoot, think to yourself: “What distracting clutter can I remove from the picture?” You can do this by moving closer or by using a telephoto to fill the frame with what’s interesting. Get rid of what’s not interesting. Sometimes the best shots are the simplest shots.

• Pictures of small things—an insect, a mushroom, the pattern of a leaf, an amusing sign—add variety to your coverage.

• Get close, get high, get on eye level with your subject—or even lower than eye level. Getting low and shooting upward can add drama and sometimes even block out unattractive elements. Try not to shoot everything at eye level or from your car window!

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Painting with light
• Train yourself to notice how the color of light varies at different times of day.

• Don’t put your camera away when it’s rainy or misty. An image of the Tower of London in the fog, for example, evokes its tragic history.

• Though early morning (just before sunrise to an hour or so later) and late afternoon (an hour before sunset to half an hour after) can give you beautiful light, you can shoot all day long. At noon shoot down from a high vantage point; in harsh light move into the shade or indoors. If hard shadows fall over the subject, use a strobe or fill flash. You can make any lighting situation work if you do it creatively.

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Gremlins
Watch out for “gremlins” you may not notice until you’ve had your film developed.

• Watch out for telephone poles growing out of people’s heads.

• To hold your camera steady, keep your neck strap very short and turn it around your hand to tighten it against the back of your neck. Put one foot forward. Keep your elbows steadied against your body, and hold your breath as you gently squeeze the shutter.

You might find it easier to photograph a family than an individual. Parents usually love to have their children photographed and are often happy to join them. Try photographing people at work or where they live or play—a lonely woman gazing out her apartment window, a boy playing stickball in an empty lot.

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Parting shots
As film directors say, film is cheap (although it’s not always their money!). Work the subject by taking different shots from different angles. The more shots you take, the more likely you are to get a good picture. Don’t be afraid to take five shots of the same subject and throw four away.

As the Boy Scout motto states, “Always be prepared.” Have your camera ready, and try to anticipate when the best photo opportunities are about to take place.

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