Some Close Up critters

[Paul]

These are not macros. I shot these from a distance of over 75 feet away. they are heavily Cropped to bring out the details. Any CC would be appreciated on these shots.

Chipmunk

Personally Favorite, A squirell

Male American Gold Finch

[finnbay]

First is my favorite, Paul. Tough to get every element when you have to crop so much, but still nice. C&C? Keep workin' on gettin' closer! Composition is good.

[DMN]

I also like #1 the best.

Do you guys have guidelines as how much you dare crop for say an 8x10 photo starting with an 8 or 10 meg dsl? I know it would depend on how sharp you got the shot the in the first place?

XT had asked a while back about when a shot is cropped 50% or 100%, what does that mean, I was curious also but don't think I saw an answer.

[Dbl]

I agree with Ken. On your third image you have some haloing around the bird as well. Normally caused by over sharpening and with the heavy crop it just exaggerates it.

I just seems so easy to just take the crop tool and get what you want, but pixels are pixels. There is only so much data available and when you take away 60% or 70% of it...well you just have to get closer, buy a bigger lens, or live with what you have.

I honestly think this is one of the toughest things for folks new to digital to learn. An experienced eye will see all these little things in a digital file, haloing, over sharpening, shadow recovery, dodging and burning. The longer I do this the less I spend in manipulating files. Just as in film days getting it right in the camera, exposure, focus, etc. gives you a much better file that requires very little in PP.

Sorry to get slightly off track in C&C but I think it is good for ALL of us to think about these things on occasion. I know I have to.

[Dbl]

DMN it is a matter of simple math. Lets say I start with a file 3504 X 2336 or about 6.4mp (just happened to have one). If I now use the crop tool, which keep in mind only is for cropping your photo to a format to fit print paper, how much do I lose? How much did you crop away? The remaining amount of pixels remaining from the original is the percentage I cropped away. Most folks just make a guess, hence the 50% crop.

The more you take a way the fewer pixels you are left with. I print about 3 or 4 files per week at 20"x30" or 24"x30" sizes with 2mp to 4 mp files. My labs RIP or software that up sizes handles these with no problems. Obviously the larger the file the more pixels we have and the end result is better.

Many on line labs will tell you when you upload your photo the largest print size that will give good results. They usually have a little bar indicator that shows you visually what you can get from the file. Each lab is slightly different based on their software.

One good reason to always keep a copy of the original file, if at a latter date you want to print larger it is better to work from the un-cropped file, more pixels again.

[Steve Foss]

Dan's on the money.

I recently took a photo and cropped away 70 percent from my 8.2 Mp camera's file and what was left made a fine, sharp 8x10 print, and I could go about 11x14 but no bigger with it.

I did that by cropping it how I wanted, dropping resolution to 240 ppi and then locking that resolution but increasing size to 8x10. That forced photoshop to add pixels (interpolate), and I selected the "bicubic smoothing" option, later sharpening to taste.

Much depends on the lens you used to make the capture. The sharpest lenses will allow you to crop more aggressively at more extreme ranges from the subject. I used the 400 f5.6L for the image I mentioned. With the 100-400 I couldn't have done it (I've tried before) because the zoom doesn't resolve the image quite as sharply at extreme range as the prime does.

[DMN]

Thanks Dbl and stf, it is starting to make more sense.

I have been cropping I think to say 8X10 with the boxes for resample unchecked and watching resolution. I will have to look tonight and maybe start a new thread, I don't want to hijack Pauls thread here.

[Steve Foss]

I will have to look tonight and maybe start a new thread, I don't want to hijack Pauls thread here.

That'd be good!