Post 247: Cropping a Photo Made Easy

Cropping a Photo Made Easy

There are a ton of ways to do a many things on a computer which is great - some are incredibly easy and some are much more complex. A quick search on your device of choice, will address the 'how to's" and if you have specific software you are using, like Photoshop, you can edit photos once you learn how. But not everyone has Photoshop. How you approach anything depends on your skill level of course. I just wanted to address the EASIEST way that I know of to edit, or crop a photo of an artwork when submitting art for an art show or gallery if you are unfamiliar with the process.

Preparing your Painting

We are presuming here that you are fairly unfamiliar with computers - you are a beginner, a newbie, not tech savvy. Hey, we all started somewhere right? Let's take this all a step at a time.

In a previous blog post, I have suggestions on Taking Photographs of Your Artwork.

I am going to also presume that you know where your images are stored on your computer, and how you organize your photo library of your artwork is totally up to you. Just FIND the artwork you need to crop first. Then double click on that little fella.

1. Open the best photograph that you have taken of your artwork.

A basic photo editing application on your computer will open the image. Look around and you will see the editing options available to you. On my version in the center is Edit Image, Rotate, Delete (trash can), a heart for adding to favorites, See More and some other options we are not worried about for right now. Let's click on the Edit Image. Give it a few moments to load.

On your selected image:

• Make sure there are not glares that cannot be cropped out.
• Make sure the image resolution is the best it can be for the situation needed. For example, if the photograph of your artwork is to be used for jurying or printing, you want a very high resolution - a very good quality photo to begin with. I've met fellow artists that have lesser quality photos in a file for social media while they save their great quality photographs for printing. Even then, the lesser quality ones or for your website, you may want to include a watermark, but that is in another blog post as well. See Watermarks
  

By the way, these are screenshots of a recent painting of mine - Historical Manassas - Sunrise at the ARTFactory. The original photo was taken October 8, 2022 at the Artist Inventory Sale. And the guy walking across the train tracks is Mark Murphy, another PWAS member, who was also at that art show.

2. Straightening is on the right side of the editor.

A good idea is to probably either straighten your horizon on your image first OR if you have to flip it, or Rotate to get it right-side-up, do that now. If you are straightening the horizon, you can click on the center button on the line where is shows "Straightening" and use your computer's left or right arrows on your keyboard to fix the alignment.

3. The image above was slightly leaning to the right, I tilted it to the left one click.

Adjusted horizon. Granted, this may not be absolute perfection and other software may give the artist gridlines and a perfectly horizontal line, but it is much improved.

4. See the 4 corners of the photo?

Let's take one corner (the white dot) and slowly drag it into just the canvas corner. You want to not crop off a lot of your painting but DO eliminate the background. It's ok if some of your painting gets slightly cut. If too much is cut, you would probably want to take more photos of your painting to get as square to the canvas as you can.

Note: you can also grab the straight line and drag each one at a time but the corner 'dots' will do 2 sides at once.

5. Now drag the other corner in to your canvas.

Two things to notice on this cropping.

 

A. The top left of the image shows a reflection off the canvas's edge

B. The bottom right of the image shows a small amount of background

Continue cropping the photo to eliminate those 2 things. It will cut some of your painting off but as per above, if its not imperative to your painting, its better to have clean cut images or take more photos.

6. Everything looks clean, straight, painting only?

Great! Now the next important thing is to Save a copy and to save it properly. Save yourself some time and when Save As window opens:

A. File name: format as LastName_FirstInitial-Title of Artwork

B. Save as type: JPG is fine at this time

 

C. Again, you could put this in its own folder and title it so that you know these are the edited versions of your artwork and can easily grab them as needed.

Get in the habit of saving your files with a consistent naming format. When someone is working with a lot of someone else's images, keeping the what belonging to the who is so much easier when the file names say Who-What.

7. And your result is...

Tada! The thin areas sliced off do not really detract from the original painting.

 

Liguria_D-Historic Manassas Sunrise at the ARTFactory

I know this was very simplistic but we have folks in the art group and outside the art group that are artists and do some super-great things, but a computer or smartphone is not their preferred monster. Which is fine. You won't find me launching rockets into space either, unless on canvas.

Does anyone have any suggestions or other options to add? I would love for some of our photographer members to add their tips too...

Be sure and see the previous post too - Learn Take a Better Photo of Your Artwork When Submitting to Calls for Art

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Author: Donna Liguria
An artist member of PWAS in Woodbridge, VA specializing in acrylic painting. She paints landscapes, seascapes, animals and many subjects. Visit her Website at https://DonnaLiguriaArt.com & her Blog at https://donnascavepainting.blogspot.com/.

Photography/Video Credits: 

Donna Liguria

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Local Art: Visit us at Stonebridge Open Space Arts at 15000 Potomac Town Center, Woodbridge, VA - Open Wed to Sat 12-7 and Sun 12-5
The Prince William Art Society is a 50-year-old non-profit art group in PWC for the appreciation of fine art throughout the county and Northern Virginia.

Want to know how to get involved at OSA? If you are an artist (18 or older) living in Prince William County, or a are a member of a PWC art group, you are welcome to get on our next art show's emailing list. Send it to us, OR come by the gallery to find out more.

Want to join PWAS? Go to https://www.princewilliamartsociety.com/membership

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