Cropping for a better Image

On November 12, 2010, in Maryland, Photography Tips, by admin

Dandelion Tears, Antietam National Battlefield

Sometimes an image just does not turn out the way you thought it would.  Above left is a picture of a dew covered dandelion.  I was expecting this to be a nice composition of the brown inner seeds surrounded by the dew covered feather like things.  Instead, it looks very ragged with the dew drops scattered about (the original image had the complete dandelion surrounded by background on each side).  Note also the green background on the top and the black background on the bottom.  This resulted from the bottom background being in shadow while the top background was in the sun.  Needless to say, the left side is not a very good image.

Instead of deleting the image, I did some additional cropping.  On the right is the same mage with the top half cropped out.  Notice that I no longer have the distracting light/dark backgrounds.  Instead, your eye is drawn to the fine detail of those feather like things.  The brown seeds at the top provide just enough “balance” to fill out the image without drawing away from the dew drops.  All in all, the right image is a much better image than the left, all because of the creative cropping.

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