Now You See It. Now You Don't.
The new way to crop on your iPhone.
Photo by author.
For a newbie photographer, the darkroom in the communications building was Disneyland, and in the spring of 1970, at the University of Washington, it was THE place to be.
Being at the intersection of the Vietnam protest movement and 60’s counterculture, everything was rich material. You couldn’t step outside without running into a protest gathering or National Guard troops, all against the backdrop of flying Frisbees and guitar strumming Dylan wannabes. We gathered in the darkroom every evening to develop film and print 8x10's of the best shots. We imagined ourselves as the next generation of photojournalists at Magnum, Life Magazine, and National Geographic.
One thing I learned quickly was that photojournalism is often about making the best of an imperfect situation. You couldn’t always get to the right spot or switch lenses fast enough. People got in the way. You had to adapt.
Mobile photography is often like that too. Because you always have your "camera" with you, those random photo opportunities show up when you least expect them. You're in the wrong spot. Or too far away. Someone walks into the shot or a car goes by. You grab what you can.
But you don't have to live with it.
Cropping became the secret weapon in my photo toolbox.
Photo by author.
It’s amazing how cropping an image can change the impact and context of the shot. It can be a simple as removing a door frame or as extreme as cropping out everything but the primary subject. Anyone who has zoomed in to take a shot on their iPhone is actually cropping in on the image, either to see the subject better or to remove a distraction.
Photo by author.
And cropping can creatively re-frame an image in ways that enhance the entire shot. There’s nothing sacred about the native crop format in any camera or digital device, and it’s ours to play with.
On the iPhone, you get to the cropping tool in Edit Mode, which shows up when you tap a photo to view it full size. The Edit button is in the upper right corner of the screen. Tapping Edit will take you into Edit Mode and the Crop tool shows up next to Adjust and Filters. Choosing the tool will create handles on the photo that you can drag around to crop it any way you want. If you’re looking for a standard format, there’s a button for that too and you can choose from several traditional and modern formats to keep your photo cropping consistent. Tap the Done button when you’ve got the look you want.
But here’s the thing. In iOS 17, Apple made it so you can go direct to crop on the iPhone without strolling through the whole Edit menu. All you have to do is zoom in on a photo - touch and spread two fingers - and a “crop” button will show up in the upper right corner of the screen. Tapping that will take you straight to the Crop tool in Edit with all the adjustments ready to go.
Photo by author.
The beauty of Apple Photos is that, like all edits, cropping your photos is non-destructive. Meaning you can always revert back to the original, uncropped version of the image. Or change the crop to something else. There are, however, a couple things to keep in mind when you crop your photos.
First, you are removing digital data from the photo on one or more sides, reducing the dimensions. Even though the whole file still exists in Apple Photos, you will be exporting/sharing a smaller sized image file based on the crop. That’s usually fine for viewing on a digital device or the web, but if the image is going to be printed you need to compare the cropped image dimensions (use the INFO panel) to the requirements for the photo print or book and be sure the picture won't be to small to print well.
Also, for prints or digital display there are some common formats that you'll want to consider. Standard print sizes include 4x6 (the 2:3 format) 8x10, 16x20 (4:5 format) so you'll want to adjust your crop when you order those to know what will be included in the picture. Of course, unique crops can be striking on the wall if you are making a custom print and frame. Flat screen HDTV's have a 16:9 format and need that to fill the screen without distorting the image or adding black bars. Fortunately, Apple Photos is non-destructive, so you can always go back and re-crop an image for multiple uses and save it as an image version or just revert to your preferred crop after export
Learning how and when to crop your photos is an easy and fun way to start editing your work. And now you can do it on the fly.