Is it acceptable to crop and refine composition after taking a photo?
Asked 9/13/2018
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2 answers
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I often shoot quickly on my phone with the subject roughly where I want it, then decide on the final crop and framing later in editing. I find this more convenient than fully composing on the spot.
Is this a common and acceptable photography practice, or is it generally expected that composition should be finalized in-camera? Is composing later in post-processing seen as a shortcut, or just another creative tool?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
8y ago
2 Answers
31
First of all: Photography is a form of art and everybody can perform his art like he wants. With that said the so called photography "rules" especially the rules of composition are more of a guideline to help composition than a rule.
If you prefer to compose your image after the shot it is your style and your image but the "offline" composing has some disadvantages compared to the direct composition.
The first disadvantage is that you loose a lot of the image and the image gets smaller because of this.
Also you can only really change the crop after taking the picture but the composition also contains the angle and position where the picture is taken. This second point is also the thing where I don't understand your point of greater level of freedom because a lot of photographers think on a quite big limitation because of this. Composition is more than just the crop of the image. It is what is shown and how it is shown. So not only the crop is important but also the position from where the image was taken, the angle of the camera, the focal length,...
My question is whether this is a common practice among photographers? Or maybe traditional photographers do the composition when they capture?
A lot of photographers make crop tweaks after taking the image but it is always just cutting away parts of the image and you cannot add a lot in post. So you should try to get the composition itself as close to the end product in camera as possible.
More specifically, is offline composing considered as cheating or something?
Photography is an art form so cheating is not really possible as long as you stand to what you do and don't claim it to be anything which it is not. So for example don't call it documentary photography if you have changed things in the image like the removal of distractions.
The big problem is that the offline composition is way more limited than doing it online. So it is better to take your time before taking the picture and get it close than thinking a long time afterwards and be limited with your changes.
Originally by user77605. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user77605
8y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Yes—cropping and refining composition in post is a normal, accepted part of photography. Composition “rules” are really guidelines, and many photographers use whatever tools help them achieve the image they want.
That said, composing later has tradeoffs. Cropping reduces resolution because you throw away part of the frame, and post-processing can only change framing—not the camera position, angle, perspective, timing, or light. Those choices still need to happen at capture.
So it’s not cheating. It’s a creative choice. Many strong images have been significantly cropped after capture. But relying on cropping for everything can also become limiting, because careful composition in-camera often gives you the best quality and more intentional results.
In practice: compose as well as you reasonably can when shooting, then use cropping afterward to improve the image when needed. There’s a time for both.
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