Landscape cropping advice

paddy · 22 Sep 2013 at 08:38

I'm getting the below photo printed on a canvas, but am unsure how it should be cropped.

I like the wide cloud band and would probably crop around the first cloud "lump" on the left.
My wife would like it much more tightly cropped to around the hill.

------^----^ (my crop here or here)

Derek W · 22 Sep 2013 at 10:25

your dropbox is locked so we cant view it. certainly i cant view it here.

paddy · 22 Sep 2013 at 15:57

Gah. Sorry about that.

I've rehosted it and you should be able to see it now.

DB_SamX · 22 Sep 2013 at 17:35

What's wrong with the current crop?

I find it alright, but you could also try cropping it such that the hill was a third across.

paddy · 22 Sep 2013 at 17:40

I think it's ok at the moment. But in the past I've tended to go too wide on my panorama stitches. I thought I would get some other opinions.

Sh4rkie · 22 Sep 2013 at 21:47

Personally i'd crop out the shadow (from a hedge row?) in the bottom right corner, its distracting for me. In the same crop take out some of the grass as well, it'll tighten it up nicely

theheyes · 22 Sep 2013 at 22:31

Its the right side that's the problem, there isn't a lot of breathing space which is giving the image some imbalance. That makes me want to go more square with the crop but then you lose the clouds.

You could get a couple of prints done before committing to a canvas and see how they look.

Street · 23 Sep 2013 at 16:35

How do these type of photos come out on canvas? I've got a photo I've taken that I want to print out and have been debating getting it done on canvas or a normal framed print but am unsure of how it would come out.

D.P. · 23 Sep 2013 at 16:50

theheyes said:
Its the right side that's the problem, there isn't a lot of breathing space which is giving the image some imbalance. That makes me want to go more square with the crop but then you lose the clouds.

You could get a couple of prints done before committing to a canvas and see how they look.

This really.
Where the left edge is fine, at the end of the cloud. But the right edge has issues, the tree needs more space, even worse some of the branches are clipped out of the frame.

Hopefully you have some more photos to the right to stitch on the end? Otherwise I would be tempted to go back to the scene and take another set before paying for a big print.

paddy · 23 Sep 2013 at 22:13

Thanks for the input. I hadn't really considered the right hand side. I was going to crop more of the dead branches off thinking they were distracting.

This is the full stitch as it has come out of the stitching program (I don't know what program I used, it was taken over 6 years ago)

As you see things are a bit tight, but if I trim the grass off a little I could probably squeze it in.

Retaking it is an option, but I'd have to wait until June next year!

paddy · 23 Sep 2013 at 22:26

just had a quick play with Photoshop Element Photomerge.

Reposition only merge, and this is it's result:

Still tight, but more options now

D.P. · 23 Sep 2013 at 23:17

still tight but looks better to me.

Capt Doufos · 24 Sep 2013 at 12:34

If you had access to CS5 or CS6 (maybe run a trial mode) The content aware fill would most likely fill those blank areas and it would hardly be noticeable (If that helps). I have used it on a handful of mine and you can only really notice if you look REALLY hard and have your nose right up to the print.