CROP FOR IMPACT! Essential Tips for Sports Photo Editing
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- Опубликовано: 21 июл 2024
- I know photo editing is not the favorite thing for most photographers, but if there is one skill you want to master, it's cropping. So today, let's discuss three reasons why and when to crop your sports photos.
I'll be showing some sample crops using Adobe Photoshop, but other editing programs can be used instead.
ABOUT ME:
I currently work as a director of photography and content at USA Today. As part of our nation and worldwide distribution, you've likely seen my work in many publications including but not limited to USA Today, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, ESPN, and Sports Illustrated.
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It has taken me over 10 years of shooting college sports to learn the techniques, perspectives, and preparations that I just watched in your video series. Thanks and recommend this for every new shooter.
Appreciate the very kind words! I wish I started my channel a lot earlier than I did!
Great vids. I'm glad I found your channel. Hope to see more of you soon
Thanks for watching and the support Erwin! More on the way. Next video coming out on Saturday! :-)
Your depth of knowledge is helping me and my editor (wife) become better! Glad for your channel!
Really glad I am able to help you both! It has been a bit busy for me this month, but I finally have another video coming out this week. Hope you enjoy!
Glad that I came across your channel, definitely a reference to me and will keep following. Cheers
Hi Carlos! Glad to hear that! I'm doing videos every 2 weeks now, so hope that I can continue to help!
@@JerryTLai Thank You Jerry for the quick reply! Trust me! I'll be viewing every single one! Cheers
Good stuff!
Very nice video and channel in general. I crop my pictures a lot for that very purpose, to improve focus and impact on the action. One thing to be careful with cropping is trying to avoid cropping people heads off (even spectators) and of course cutting through their joints. Thanlk you for sharing your expertise on the channel - any chance you have any experience with volleyball and be doing a separate video about it? Thanks
Thanks for watching! Yup especially when leveling your horizon you could accidentally scalp your players!
nice video! really great tipp for all new to taking sports photos. i had many photos indicating the world would be tilted when i started out a few months ago :D
Thanks for watching! Haha whenever I see photographs that are tilted inadvertently I like to joke to him/her to “put on your other shoe!”
Great and very informative video. When working for a newspaper or magazine are ethical issues raised by cropping for impact?
Great question. No it is not a problem, because you aren’t changing what is happening in the photo. Where the line gets drawn is if you move objects or people in and out of the frame or if you are changing colors and content of the photo. Thanks for asking and thanks for watching!
In regards to distractions, I sometimes like to have a blurry foreground image to create some depth
In your opinion what would you prefer: more Megapixel for Cropping or less MP for faster Workflow or maybe better low-light capabilities?
Thanks for your videos.
Great question. It almost depends on why you are asking it. If you're asking about being able to shoot looser and crop, then keep in mind that increased mp should simply be another tool in your kit. You still need to shoot tight, and with good technique, because if you shoot too loose, you won't have much separation from subject and background. Now that said, if you're asking about workflow, then yes I'd prefer less MP and better image quality. Sort of a hard concept to explain, so I hope you get what I am getting at. Thanks for watching!
Do you recommend using pre-set crop ratios such as 5x7 or 8.5x11 or do you prefer to use a custom ratio that is best suited for the crop you're looking for?
I saw someone else asked a similar question which you answered ; )
When you crop should you try to maintain a ratio of 3 to 2 or whatever the original ratio was?
Jerry - do you encourage working to a specific aspect ratio or free crop for impact? Impact is crucial - but if you are selling pictures free cropping to odd/non-standards ratios can present problems. Thoughts? What do USA Today photographers submit?
Great question Mike. The answer will depend on who the end user is going to be. If you're shooting for your portfolio or website, I'd suggest just free cropping. If you are selling pictures, yes your life will be much easier using a constrained crop - while doing your best to follow the guidelines of removing distractions, cleaning up your backgrounds etc. At my paper and I believe it's similar at many organizations, we don't have firm guidelines, but we do encourage people clean up their crops as best as possible, and also try to eyeball a 3:2 ratio (avoid panos and squares!).
Excellent! Thanks. This may sound odd .. but I know some organizations that suggest a 3:2.2216 crop - for math-based reasons that escape me, it’s a more flexible ratio for making anything from a 4x6 to an 8x10. I know it sounds crazy ... but it works. I believe it is the the ratio that MaxPreps uses now.
Hmmm, that's very interesting for MaxPreps, but it makes sense to me. Because the "usual" 3:2 ratio does make cropping for 8x10 photos a bit awkward. So they probably ran some analytics on it and found that resulted in the fewest cropping / printing complaints from parents :-)
Quick question. How does aspect ratio play into all of this? Is there a preferred traditional ratio to keep or just crop as relevant? (within reason of course)
Hey Tuba Solo the Hiker! That will ultimately depend on what / who you are shooting for. I try to keep approximately a 3:2 ratio, but I don't lock the aspect ratio, I generally just eyeball it. If you are shooting for Instagram, or TV, your aspect will be different (square, or 16:9). But 3:2 is a good starting point, because even if you need a wider ratio, you can still crop into a 3:2 to get 16:9 or get a square photo.
@@JerryTLai Thank you for that clarification. Appreciate all you're doing for the sports photo folks. All your work is very helpful.
I am wondering if you have any recommendations for how many frames per second continuous shooting to do....I end up with so many pictures per game I am exhausted with all the editing and cropping!
This is a great question. The frames per second in the new cameras are getting kind of ridiculous. I find 10-12fps more than adequate. With the Canon R5 or the Sony A9 I never shoot at their max frame rate of 20fps, I always turned it down to a lower setting (mechanical shutter is 12fps and 10fps respectively). This will probably be the same if I get an R3 or A1. You can also train yourself and get better about only releasing the shutter when you're more likely to have a photo - players are not in a pile or they are facing you.
Hi Jerry Lai
Does crop affecting anything in photos
If my camera is 18mp or 20 mp
There is not a very big difference in how much you can crop between 18mp vs 20mp. That said, how much you are able to crop into a picture will depend on how you intend to use it. Cropping heavily will affect the image quality if done too aggressively. That said, if it's for internet/web/instagram only, you can crop very significantly into the photo, because small displays hide a lot of the flaws and noise in a photo. However, if you are looking to make large prints or posters, you will want to be as full frame as possible.
@@JerryTLai ok
And what camera body and lens do you own
Cropping does not affect anything in the image as you basically just pick out the interesting part. However if the remaining cropped part is left with only a few pixels the image quality will suffer. Usually 300dpi for print and 72dpi for web/social media/... are a reference for the resolution required. dpi is "dots per inch", it is the pixel density required to produce an image that appears sharp when viewed. From this you can basically derive how much you can crop based on the target product: say you want a 4 by 6 inch photograph printed, you'd need about a 4x300 by 6x300 pixel image. For the web the final image needs to be at least 4x72 by 6x72 pixels. Essentially you need to figure out what is the minimum dpi required for your intentions. If all you do is post the images on Instagram cropping rather tight from an 18mp file is not a problem. The sampe crop hoewever is no plasing view as a large print.
Summed up, from the target outcome (print, web, social media, ...) and target size (4x6 photo, 20x30 print, ...) you can estimate how much pixels you need and subsequently decide how much you can crop while retaining a clean outcome.
Is it acceptable to submit two crops of the same photo over the wire?
It’s not common practice but people do it, especially if it’s a particularly interesting frame or an important play. More common is perhaps two different images from the same sequence cropped differently (eg one tight and one full or one horizontal another vertical)
I know that photoshop is the best editing program but it’s $$$ and I don’t have it. Is there a more reasonably priced editing program you’d recommend? All I usually do is crop my photos using iMac photos. Editing is not my least favourite part. And how about storage? I’m running out of room after many years and several computers of my girls sports. How long do I keep photos of other people’s kids? I’d have to go through thousands and thousands.
Hi Tanya! Thanks for watching. Unfortunately, I don't have an alternative I can recommend. You're right, Photoshop is pretty expensive. I use a copy of CS5, which is several years old, but it's an owned copy so I don't pay a recurring subscription fee.
For storage, I generally just use those plug and play harddrives you can pick up at any electronic store.
Photos on the iMac is quite an amazing and robust program. It does most of what I need.
i admit, i suck at cropping even though I took good shots
It does take a bit of practice, as well as confidence to get better at cropping. Keep at it!