How to crop portraits in the correct position in post productionCrop is one of the most basic operations for image post production retouching, and it is also the most commonly used post production retouching operation. In ordinary photography, it is not important to take a complete and beautiful photo. Some photos may have poor angles or contain some interference factors in the picture, and most of them are cropped. However, Gao En Clothing Photography Company tells you that cropping is not that simple.
Trimming a good image is not that simple. Everyone has different feelings about the image in their hearts, and different cropping methods can also present different feelings. Similarly, there is no one cropping method that is necessarily correct. As for how to cut, it still depends on what effect you want, rather than simply cutting out some interfering factors.
Firstly, we need to determine the length of the portrait photo. One of the factors that define a portrait is its length. Our image can include the entire body and environment, while also focusing on specific parts.
When choosing a full body photo, the biggest feature is that it can cover more of the surrounding environment into the picture, using the environment to tell stories or create atmosphere. If you want the model to occupy a more prominent position in the picture, you can cut it into a half length photo, starting from the knee or waist area.
If you think the background of the shoot is not important at all and the focus is on the model in the picture, then you need to cut it up to a close-up of the model, above the chest or shoulders, so as to highlight the model's gaze and expression, completely ignoring the model's movements. However, this has a significant impact on the model's performance and the angle of the shoot, so it is important to be cautious when cutting.
Once we have a clear understanding of what type of portrait to shoot, we can directly compose it during the shooting process. However, it is not ruled out that sometimes this is not very realistic, such as when we get the desired expression when we are far away from the model, but when we get closer, nothing tastes good, so we can only use the photo taken from a distance to brainstorm.
During the cropping process, it is inevitable to lose pixels. If too much cropping is done, in other words, if the person in the photo is enlarged too much, the resolution of the photo will decrease, making the photo look a bit rough. So more work should be put into the pre shooting process to keep post production cropping within a controllable range.
Knowing where to crop is important, otherwise it is likely to result in an awkward photo. There is a rule of thumb about cutting that says' do not cut at joint positions'. During the cutting process, we should try to avoid ankle, knee, elbow and other parts as much as possible. When cutting the shoulders and neck, we should also pay attention to either keeping them all or cutting them all, not cutting half, keeping half.
When taking or cropping close-up shots of the face, it is important to place the model's eyes in the upper half of the composition, and to avoid "cutting" the model's neck or chin. Additionally, it is important to preserve the entire forehead. If cutting is necessary at the top, some hair on the top of the head can be removed.
Finally, many post production software have cropping functions and preset auxiliary lines, such as Lightroom. During the cropping process, we can use the built-in auxiliary lines in the software to help us crop and make the picture more harmonious.
Crop is easy, but we should be more clear that crop is just a remedy. Gaoen Clothing Photography Company believes that the early stage is still important in photography. Although some friends may joke that photography relies entirely on post production, what Gaoen wants to say is that if the early stage is not taken well, even if the post production is strong, it cannot be repaired.
