Photo Cropping Tips & Techniques

There are several reasons why you might want to crop a photograph:

1. To eliminate a distracting background. Often I'll find that I have a great photograph, if it weren't for the background. Dirty walls, cluttered rooms, people mid-chew, and all those other background distractions can take the focus away from your "great" picture. By cropping the photos, you can remove the distractions and put the focus where it should be.
   
   
   
   
   
2. To focus on one particular aspect of an image. Maybe the background is just fine, but you want to write a journaling story about one little detail in the photograph, such as a bracelet on your mother's wrist, a pair of patent leather shoes on your daughter, or a special bench in your backyard where you like to sit and read. You can crop a photograph to focus all attention directly on the special portion of the image.
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. To reduce the size of a print to fit on your layout. Another common reason for cropping photographs is simply to fit them into a particular layout design. Often an image can be cropped considerably in size without losing the main feeling of the picture at all.
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. To "correct" an unbalanced picture. So, your Uncle Jeff isn't a great photographer and the photographs you have are way off-center and you're surprised your head is even in the frame at all. Cropping your photos post-processing is a great way to "correct" those photographic mistakes.
   
   
   

Now that you know why you might want to crop a photograph, what are some good ways to do it? Here are a few techniques to get you started:

• Collaging - Simply trimming the photos down by an inch or two, by removing unimportant background areas, can save you space on a layout and bring the focus more clearly on the subject of the picture. Also, as in the "Fourth of July" layout shown above, cropping is a great way to fit a large number of photos onto one layout.
  
  Additional examples:
  Ayla on Vaca
  
  See also: Multi-Photo Layouts
  
  
• Silhouetting - Silhouetting means cutting around the outline of a person or object in a photograph. It used to be the thing to do in scrapbooking. Back when photos were originals and it was harder to get reprints, frankly it was a quick way to ruin a photograph. Once we realized its damaging effects, silhouetting became the thing NOT to do. But now, in the digital age with ample reprints at our fingertips, it has again become a great way to creatively crop and graphically design a scrapbook page around a photograph.
  
  *A secret about the photograph on this layout that you might not see at first glance is that it's actually two photographs. I silhouetted two photographs (one of my husband and one of my daughter and me in front of the Alabama sign) and pasted one on top of the other to make it look like we were all standing together in front of the sign.
  
  Additional examples:
  Ayla Is One
  Wednesday Walkers
  
  
• Shaping - This is another one of those techniques that has returned as trendy in the digital age. Cropping photos into graphic shapes or to fit within a particular design is a fun way to spruce up a layout. Circles, squares, rectangles, diamonds, and even flowers make great cropped photo designs. Punches are great for this kind of cropping.
  
  Additional examples:
  Small World
  Christmas Is...
  Tennessee Football
  

Play around with your photographs and don't be afraid to cut ‘em up a little bit! Not only can you improve the look of your photographs, but you have the power to design fabulous scrapbook pages using cropping as a design technique.

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