Framing your subject up for a portrait can sometimes be difficult. Should you get closer? Further? Cropping in close is particularly challenging because you don’t want to change it in such a way that it looks like your subject is missing limbs. A poorly cropped photo can make all the difference when it comes to portraits. To help you out, here’s a little cropping guide shown from Digital Camera World that shows where to crop and where not to crop. Green lines mean it’s a good place for the edge of the frame, red means it’s a bad place:
Portrait Cropping Guide
Remember, you can always crop in, but you can’t crop out. So it doesn’t hurt to pull out just a bit when taking your shots. That way you have a little wiggle room during post.
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In complete agreement with above comments – never crop at the knee. Am sure that is an error.
I was always told you never crop at a joint. That means never at the neck, waist or knees. Complete opposite of this post.
Just goes to show, crop it however you think it looks good.
IMO the neck is not a joint and that is a common crop, and the diagram doesn’t seem to show a crop at the waist~ but I agree about the knees. I prefer the crop above the knees shown in red. This is a common crop leaving a little “sky” below the crotch. :)
This is helpful. Thanks
Since there is no green line below the feet, does this mean that a portrait shouldn’t ordinarily include the feet at all?
Extremely useful post!