Cropping contest of silly image

torbod · Joined: 31 Jan 2010 Posts: 379 Location: Sweden

Well, the price is only honor, but feel free to crop this rather silly image to something good. It is also allowed to rotate, rescale, change sharpness and contrast to increase 3D-ness, but the cropping is my main interest. Nothing can be manipulated away from the image by other means than the cropping action.

I was out trying to test sharpness and contrast of my beloved Leitz Macro Elmarit-R 60 2.8 stopped down to f5.6 (I normally shoot wide open). So there is massive detail, objects close and far, diagonality, perspective etc. Still I find it very hard to crop since there is always something distracting left (flagpole, lightpost, road gate, poster sign, etc). I normally crop to square or 1x1.5 ratio, but I tried something in between and still I didn't get something I liked.

Is it really hopeless?

Click on it to get a larger version.

Cheers
/T

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

Rather than try cropping, why not try editing out the detail you don't like. Sometimes it takes a bit of patience, but often it can be done in such a way to make a big difference. For example:

From this:

To this:

From this:

To this:

From this:

To this:

All those tall light poles in front of the building, and even that big one on the right side can be gotten rid of with a bit of patience.

torbod · Joined: 31 Jan 2010 Posts: 379 Location: Sweden

Thank you for the examples. Pretty impressive stuff.

Removing things with PS tools can be fairly easy with some patience as you say. But I'd like to improve on my cropping style and composition and have some other persons view on what can be interesting. Perhaps some distracting elements can be left in the image to improve on 3D feeling. Or it can be a part of this rather messy place, to show perspective and lead the eyes into the image. Or it is best to avoid them totally.
Things like that is what I'd like to experiment with.
I could have made several different crops and have a discussion about that, but then I'd not get to see the results as made with different eyes.

cheers
/T

ludoo · Expire: 2011-12-05

A quick edit in silkypix. Deciding on a crop for this image is not that easy, plus we don't know what you'd like the image to mean. Smile

William · Joined: 26 Nov 2009 Posts: 489 Location: London

To be honest I quite like the photo as it is although Ludoo's crop is good as well as that white pole through the right hand side is a little distracting.

Himself · Expire: 2013-05-30

No need to add more sharpness or contrast.
Just cropping won't do any justice to that picture. You have to remove those 2 poles, the barrier and the banner on the bottom left hand corner.
What letters were there?

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

Okay, here's my quicky attempt. I cropped the image first to one that I thought worked better. I removed a lot more than two poles, but I didn't remove the banner. Taking the banner out would be easy enough to do, though.

torbod · Joined: 31 Jan 2010 Posts: 379 Location: Sweden

torbod · Joined: 31 Jan 2010 Posts: 379 Location: Sweden

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

No, I honestly think it looks better with the clutter removed. People who will view the image most likely won't even realize that the clutter is removed. We tend to tune out power poles and light poles and other parts of a city's infrastructure anyway.

Okay, so here's another quicky attempt, this time with the offending sign, gate, and banner removed. I also noticed two light poles that I had truncated, but not entirely removed. I went ahead and took them out too.

It does open up a rather large empty space there now, but you'll have to be the judge as to which is better. Me, I prefer this one without the advertising.

Also, just so you can better see what all I did, here's a copy of the image where you had already placed a few arrows. I added more, for each item I removed, and also showing the crop.

Himself · Expire: 2013-05-30

Nice editing Michael!

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

poilu · Expire: 2019-08-29

torbod · Joined: 31 Jan 2010 Posts: 379 Location: Sweden

Michael. Good work, thats a lot of arrows. I tend to agree with you, less mess more focus on the real subject. Now it has become a more straight forward image without distractive elements.

Orio: Why not. Interesting idea. This is the purpose of the tread, to find different images within the image Smile

I would probably have cropped less tight on the left side for a less compressed look. on the building and rotating sign.

/T

LucisPictor · Expire: 2013-12-03

The only crop I liked is an unconventional one. Wink

ludoo · Expire: 2011-12-05

The one I personally prefer is Carsten's. But I wonder why nobody thought of straightening the white building: since it's the focus of the picture, I think it really should be straight.

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

torbod · Joined: 31 Jan 2010 Posts: 379 Location: Sweden

kuuan · Expire: 2014-12-26

amazing how you guys can make things disappear!
I hardly could but also found signs to the far left and right disturbing. took another route reducing contents / clustering of colors, made it square concentrating on the coop and forum letterings + having all the silver poles asf as prominent feature

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

So you wanna get rid of all the clutter, eh? Well, here's your answer:

torbod · Joined: 31 Jan 2010 Posts: 379 Location: Sweden

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

torbod · Joined: 31 Jan 2010 Posts: 379 Location: Sweden

Thank you Orio. Must check up on that guy.