How to Crop Images:

Darren hits us with another great tip over at Digital Photography School - this one on cropping. Amusingly, this is something I've been experiementing with on my own photos in the last week or so - seeing what I can make out of an average photo, by removing some of the excess in the shot, paring the image down to just the subject, improving framing/balance (using the Rule Of Thirds), eliminating distractions.

I'm a firm believer in the rule that closer is better than more distant - if you can get closer, do so. If you can't, then zoom. If you can't zoom, then crop later. Of course, that's not always the case (every rule has exceptions), but more often than not I find it a good rule to follow. Mostly this applies when you have a discrete subject - a person, animal, something like that, rather than something like a view, or a landscape.

Darren shares more insight on cropping under the link, so click on through and have a read.