# Are you affected by the "pixel cropping" disease?



## Marsu42 (Sep 19, 2014)

As I'm just postprocessing a bunch of shots, I'd like to ask around if I'm the only one experiencing this effect and if there's anything I can to to improve my editing speed:

_I keep cropping the shot and rotating it until it suddenly "feels right". The problem is that I do this nearly pixel by pixel and 0.1 by 0.1 degree which takes a lot of time._

By now, I generally frame ok in the camera, but it always needs this tiny last, time consuming step to go from "could be nice" to "that's it, right there". In hindsight, this is often exactly one of the known suspects (golden ratio, thirds, ...) but I cannot predict exactly where to position it from the start.

Question: Am I over-doing it with finding the optimum crop? Or are you also investing a lot of time into this postprocessing step? 

Thanks!


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## ScottyP (Sep 19, 2014)

I fiddle with the crop quite a bit, but the amount of care differs according to how special or not special the image is. 

I usually frame a little loosely so that I can have leeway to improve composition goofs with a fairly significant crop.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Sep 19, 2014)

I crop, but don't take a great amount of pains to do it. I also do not spend a lot of time straightening, I pick a object that has prominent vertical or horizontal lines near the main subject, and eyeball it with the grid.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 19, 2014)

I straighten stuff that I need to, but I just pull the crop down and align it to horizon and as soon as it looks close on both far ends I'm done with the rotation, if it is some fraction of a degree off I really don't care.

Sometimes regular cropping can drive me crazy, since it canbe so hard to decided between version A vs B vs C in some cases. Although creating each option usuallydoesnt' take too long at all.


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## Besisika (Sep 19, 2014)

Marsu42 said:


> _I keep cropping the shot and rotating it until it suddenly "feels right". The problem is that I do this nearly pixel by pixel and 0.1 by 0.1 degree which takes a lot of time._
> 
> Thanks!


Yes, I do that too, as photos require it but I do that only to 2-3% of the keepers.
Let me explain; I usually keep 10-20% of the photos, unless I shoot burst (like bike panning) where I keep below 5%. Among these photos, around 5% I gave 5/5 grade and not only I crop and tilt them to my perfection but I spend hours in Photoshop retouching them. The other 95% I would spend 2-3min max on each.
Think of it as the wealth of our planet; 5% owns 95% and the other 95% owns only 5%.
I shoot prime almost all time and my hands are not that steady anymore; as a result tilting and cropping are musts for me.
Don't try to be mister perfect. Too much to handle.


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## DominoDude (Sep 19, 2014)

I have to admit that I suffer from horizon deficiency syndrome. Even when I think I have a straight horizon, I end up finding it to be 1.5-2.5° off. Very annoying!
And when it comes to having a good and balanced composition, I often try to have my subject according to the rule of 3rds. Canon's DPP is not making such alignment all too easy - the grids don't start out at the right place, so you can't make a direct match of a 3x3 grid. My workaround is to create a grid that is 6 squares wide and place subject properly left and right, then make a 6 square high grid and align subject to a suitable height in the photo. Tedious.


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## Besisika (Sep 19, 2014)

DominoDude said:


> I have to admit that I suffer from *horizon deficiency syndrome*.


I thought it was me getting old, I didn't know it was a disease. LOL!


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## luckydude (Sep 19, 2014)

I shoot a fair bit of hockey and I rarely have post processed maybe 1-3 pictures out of thousands. It's true that the pics would look better if I post processed but it's also true that if I had to spend that time I just wouldn't bother, I do this for fun, it's pics of my kids.

That said I hate the horizon wrong and thought I'd share how I deal with that in camera. Two things:
- I turn on whatever that grid thing is called so I have lines vertical and horizontal in the view finder.
- I shoot a 5DIII w/ the 200mm f2 (big/heavy) on a monopod with a rubber "ball" head. Those heads are
hard to find, I got mine from my dad when he died, so it's probably 30 years old. What it gives me is 
just enough give so that if I'm leaning one way or another to get the shot I can tip the camera enough
to make the horizontal lines line up with the horizon (which I do instinctively now, I don't even think
about it when I'm shooting)

I suspect you could do the same thing with a ball head set to slightly tight but it might be a little more fiddly.


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## AcutancePhotography (Sep 22, 2014)

DominoDude said:


> I have to admit that I suffer from horizon deficiency syndrome. Even when I think I have a straight horizon, I end up finding it to be 1.5-2.5° off. Very annoying!



That is so annoying! 

Unless I have a clear straight horizon, I seem to always be a bit off kilter.

But then I read that the photograph is a reflection of the photographer. :-[


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## DominoDude (Sep 22, 2014)

AcutancePhotography said:


> DominoDude said:
> 
> 
> > I have to admit that I suffer from horizon deficiency syndrome. Even when I think I have a straight horizon, I end up finding it to be 1.5-2.5° off. Very annoying!
> ...



Hehe It's a wonder that all of my shots doesn't come out of camera all twisted, slanted and twirled... 

The other day I was out shooting a few sunsets (Plural? Hmmm, more like one singular sunset actually, but I did shoot it several times.) with the UWA 10-22mm, and the only way to get what I wanted was to sit beside my camera and holding it just a few inches above the sand. Had to lean down and sneak a peak into the viewfinder so that at least the focus point was on the right subject, but I looked partly through my glasses and partly direct into the VF. I easily missed a straight horizon with several degrees. Left part of horizon was in shadow, the right part was the open sea.


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## DominoDude (Sep 22, 2014)

jrista said:


> Does anyone use the built-in levels in Canon cameras? For landscapes, I usually use the level. It isn't 100% accurate, but it is accurate enough to give you a proper gravitationally level horizon. Sometimes, I find that what I think is my horizon is actually not...it may be the back curve of a lake shore or something. Curved aspects of a scene like that, when leveled, often throw out the "uprightness" of the rest of the scene.
> 
> I've found it useful to try and look for other non-horizontal aspects, like curved shores, but also particularly trees. In the past, I often found that I'd level what I thought was the horizon, but then the trees, once I saw them in post, were clearly tilted. Knowing the geography of the thing your photographing can help as well, and sometimes you can determine levelness by looking at mountain peak heights relative to each other.



I tried the built-in level a few times when I just bought the 7D, but I think it's only accurate to ±1°. I find that it obstructs the view too much and it annoyed me, so I turned it off. If I shot on a tripod with LiveView, and had more time I would probably engage it more.


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## Dantana (Sep 22, 2014)

jrista said:


> Does anyone use the built-in levels in Canon cameras? For landscapes, I usually use the level. It isn't 100% accurate, but it is accurate enough to give you a proper gravitationally level horizon. Sometimes, I find that what I think is my horizon is actually not...it may be the back curve of a lake shore or something. Curved aspects of a scene like that, when leveled, often throw out the "uprightness" of the rest of the scene.
> 
> I've found it useful to try and look for other non-horizontal aspects, like curved shores, but also particularly trees. In the past, I often found that I'd level what I thought was the horizon, but then the trees, once I saw them in post, were clearly tilted. Knowing the geography of the thing your photographing can help as well, and sometimes you can determine levelness by looking at mountain peak heights relative to each other.



No, not the level. I was taught not to pay attention too much to camera/tripod level bubbles. It's the apparent level of horizontal lines in the subject that makes things look level. I'm more apt to look at something in Live View with the grid on to check horizon lines, etc. This is coming from someone who hates Live View.


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## Marsu42 (Sep 22, 2014)

jrista said:


> I've found it useful to try and look for other non-horizontal aspects, like curved shores, but also particularly trees. In the past, I often found that I'd level what I thought was the horizon, but then the trees, once I saw them in post, were clearly tilted.



I know this issue and even posted a thread about being horizontally challenged.

My problem remains a) with uwa shot with curved horizon, and b) when *nothing* is straight in the scene: "horizon" tilted because it's the side of a slope, trees skewed to various side and object not standing/lying/... straight either. In this case, the grid viewfinder screen helps to align all these aspects equally wrong (which might result in just the right angle), but often I simply have to shoot first and think later how to rotate in post.


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## Policar (Sep 22, 2014)

I try to never crop and try very hard not to rotate.

The horizon level helps a lot. On my 4x5 and 6x7 I would always use the lines in the finder.

I find rotating gives too big a hit to the MTF, especially for landscape.


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## GammyKnee (Sep 22, 2014)

jrista said:


> Does anyone use the built-in levels in Canon cameras? For landscapes, I usually use the level. It isn't 100% accurate, but it is accurate enough to give you a proper gravitationally level horizon. Sometimes, I find that what I think is my horizon is actually not...it may be the back curve of a lake shore or something. Curved aspects of a scene like that, when leveled, often throw out the "uprightness" of the rest of the scene.



I use the built-in level when I have it (I've got a 5D II & III) and a cheap flash mount bubble level when I don't, and for extra confidence I sometimes double-check against my (somewhat inconveniently located) tripod bubble levels. Despite all this care, I sometimes _still_ end up struggling with leveling in post due to visual mis-cues like the ones you described. It's so frustrating when you get a shot that doesn't look straight even when you know that it is!


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## NancyP (Sep 22, 2014)

Yep, I use the accelerometer level in the camera. I am not convinced that the tiny bubble levels on the (tripod spider, quick release clamp, hot shoe mount level, etc) are all that accurate either. If you gave me a big three-way level plus a big bulls-eye level and guaranteed that the levels were critically aligned with the camera sensor, then I would consider the Big-Ass-Level likely to be more accurate than the on-board accelerometer level in the camera. But we are not talking surveyor / architect grade instrumentation on our tripods, folks - just cheap, not-guaranteed-aligned-with-sensor 1 cm diameter bulls-eye levels.


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## c.d.embrey (Sep 22, 2014)

*Learn from your mistakes.* But don't waste time trying to turn a bad photo into a work of art.

Many people obsess over things that no-one else sees. Whether you correct these problems or not, makes no difference because no one cares (except you). Some photos are so Bad that imperfection are the least of your problems. And some photos are so Good no-one notices (or cares about) the imperfections.

It all gets back to Ansel Adams' idea of "Sharp pictures of Fuzzy ideas."


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## Marsu42 (Sep 22, 2014)

c.d.embrey said:


> Many people obsess over things that no-one else sees.



Good point there, it's just that cropping/rotating is one of the few things I'd say other people do see.

Maybe not consciously like in "nice golden ratio there" or "excellent horizon level", but imho this tends to make the difference between snapshot and real photography quality. But of course I could be wrong and I'm really making too much fuzz about nothing ...


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## Besisika (Sep 23, 2014)

c.d.embrey said:


> But don't waste time trying to turn a bad photo into a work of art.


Why not? Especially if it has the potential to be better than the good photos?
I am glad that you "don't waste time trying to turn a bad photo into a work of art" if that works for you.
Marsu42 feels the need to fix his. And I am with him. 
To me the issue is not "not to fix it at all", the question is how to reduce the time it takes to fix it.
My suggestion is to be selective and not to fix all of them. I choose to fix my best. But you can choose to fix only the ones that irritates you, or some other criteria.
After few years in photography, it becomes a second nature to shoot right and there isn't much room to learn from your mistakes any more, it is just that sometimes actions happen so fast that getting the shoot is your priority and not level your camera. Not everybody shoots landscape with a tripod. Some actually shoots moving train or flying bird or a hockey game.
I find that luckydude has some good suggestions if you can afford to be restricted on a monipod depending on what you shoot.


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## ejenner (Sep 26, 2014)

Shooting UWA and with their inherent distortion (even the TS-E 17mm) with some landscapes where you don't have a really defined horizon it's not easy to get it 'right'. I used to use a level, but realized for me it was useless because I'd actually end up rotating more images to actually make it look right.

BTW I used to rotate my film shots a bit too - but then getting the shot perfectly level is one aspect I've never been completely solid on.

But rotating by 0.1deg? No. Probably 0.2 is my limit for accuracy, usually 0.5 increments are good enough and then usually either just + or - 0.5 for the shot.

EDIT: I just quickly looked though my last Yellowstone visit shots and actually I guess I don't rotate that many - actually very few tripod shots. Probably just sensitive to it because it's a bit of a nemesis for me. Although that is a place with mostly well-defined horizons or parts of the image you know you want horizontal.


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## beforeEos Camaras (Sep 27, 2014)

I crop some, outers I don't crop. but have saying this I was taught on a bessler 800c I think and used a omega dicro enlarger c760 with a fujion 2.8 lens at home and I really cannot understand this digital phobia cropping and editing a photo like your going to take a perfect contact print each and every time . but maybe I am getting to old to understand this


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## epsiloneri (Sep 27, 2014)

c.d.embrey said:


> Many people obsess over things that no-one else sees.


It's nice if others like my photographs, but first I want to like them myself. Meaning, I care more about me liking my photographs than what others think. Maybe a tad egocentric  With a more positive spin it could be called artistic integrity.


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## Marsu42 (Sep 27, 2014)

epsiloneri said:


> Meaning, I care more about me liking my photographs than what others think.



Probably you're not a pro photog, then  ...

... however one valid point is: If you don't like the shots yourself, at least at some level, can you produce good results? If you think "well, the framing/cropping is off, but who cares?", can you continue to do good postprocessing on it?


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## epsiloneri (Sep 27, 2014)

Marsu42 said:


> epsiloneri said:
> 
> 
> > Meaning, I care more about me liking my photographs than what others think.
> ...


You're quite correct!


Marsu42 said:


> ... however one valid point is: If you don't like the shots yourself, at least at some level, can you produce good results? If you think "well, the framing/cropping is off, but who cares?", can you continue to do good postprocessing on it?


What you think and what others think is often very different things, "good" is subjective. If you're a pro and you fulfill your client's standards, your own may not be relevant.


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## KeithBreazeal (Sep 27, 2014)

I will rotate images so they look correct. If they need to be twisted and bent to hell, I'll do that. Shooting sports, aviation, etc., totally sucks when trying for a perfect level. I will spend a lot of time to get it right in-camera when using super wides. If I'm off by a tiny bit, too much time is spent in post trying to fix something that was off angle. I haven't noticed any huge loss in quality when rotating. I edit images to what my eye saw- nothing more, nothing less. I tend to use the camera's built in level for astro-photography, but that's about it.


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## Northstar (Sep 27, 2014)

I crop and level pretty regularly when shooting sports and action....you have to.

Fractions of a degree? That sounds like OCD to me! ;D


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## AcutancePhotography (Sep 27, 2014)

c.d.embrey said:


> Many people obsess over things that no-one else sees.



I think those people are called artists.


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## Marsu42 (Sep 27, 2014)

AcutancePhotography said:


> c.d.embrey said:
> 
> 
> > Many people obsess over things that no-one else sees.
> ...



 good point! Esp. since "no-one else sees" is a pretty bold assumption unless you're doing representative scientific field-tests. Not *knowingly* recognizing something doesn't mean it doesn't have an impact on the final result. Do people taste all seasoning in a good dish, smell all ingredients of a good perfume?


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## canon_guy (Sep 27, 2014)

Marsu42 said:


> AcutancePhotography said:
> 
> 
> > c.d.embrey said:
> ...


umm, why not?


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