Need picture cropping advice...

[billwagnon]

Finally got some okay pictures of my new-to-me car.

I cleaned up the image (here's a before and after and I have larger versions too.)

Should this be cropped and where?

[Jack Olsen]

Looks great. But if you're going to change it that much, why not the color, too?

[rstoll]

Here's one.

[emcon5]

My Vote




The way I look at it, the focus of the picture is the car. The car should be canter of the frame, or pretty close. Anything in the background that takes your attention away from the car, generally speaking should go away.

The arches in the background are cool looking, but in my completely uneducated (in photographic composition anyway) opinion, they detract from the picture.

Hopefully Randy will speak up.

Tom

[RoninLB]

...does anyone think I should "crop" my road warrior 911 because it detracts from the most pristine '72s in the US??........Ron

[carnut169]

Kinda. (sorry)

[LeeH]

Like this?

[RoninLB]

Lee...that pic is fantastic..wait till pwd72s sees your pic........Ron

[RoninLB]

carnut/Sean/ Lee......I keep going back to that fantastic pic..it was taken in the NorthWest routine days of drizzle/rain/spring...the beauty of it all, IMHO/I believe, is that the NorthWest allowed that pic to present the '72s as spiritual...but I guess that you must like/love that model....Ron

[LeeH]

Glad you liked it. I thought it came out pretty good for the time spent. If you like you can e-mail me a larger version for (a more thorough) clean up. I'll send it back and you can take on disk to one of the Kodak machines for printing.

[RoninLB]

Lee...Done Deal...It's on a Kodak disc so it has mucho bits...How do I get it on your Pelican e-mail....Paul is gonna love this pic...AGAIN Lee, the pic is beautiful........Ron

[LeeH]

I PM's you my main e-mail address. Meanwhile, here's the blurry background option:

[billwagnon]

Now it looks like a plastic model!


Thanks for the green car Jack I love that color too!

What I was aiming for with the picture was architectural curves that complement the 911 curves, so I can't really crop the arches. I could take new pictures with a generic (trees or what have you) background but the effect I want is some sort of civilized architectural elements. Curvy sand dunes might do it too. I tried cropping a few ways (eliminating the pavement in front etc) but they seemed almost-but-not-quite or included cropping through the shadow. The Arch is a quarter mile from the bridge but I couldn't get a good location to shoot from that included the Arch.

[pwd72s]

Ron just brought this to my attention. You photo cropping guys amaze me. But you also make me wonder about the accuracy of photos as they appear in the press? I kind of like the pick of my garage queen & the road warrior together. REally, both are drivers...it's just that when Ron decides to go for a drive, he REALLY goes for a drive!

[derek murray]

just a little tweaking to accentuate the verticality and improve the background...

[78silversc]

Here's one with a slightly blurred background. I think it really accentuates the car. It was only cropped a little. It is a difficult photo to crop because of the background elements. But bluuring to make it look more like a short focal length lens adds a little drama. IMHO. What do you think?

[derek murray]

i think 78silversc might have something with the gausian blur idea...

[arcsine]

I tweaked the yellowish color out that showed up on the inside of the front fender, cropped to what I think is interesting and did a touch of blurring to the foreground/background.
gary

[LeeH]

Here's the final edit after the Porschectomy.

EDIT: Pic failed on hosting web site.

[Moses]

I just can't get the hang of this cropping thingy...