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How to Crop/Frame an Image in the Camera

This is a tutorial guide for the photographer or videographer on the various ways to frame your photograph. It's a great tool for the portrait/head shot photographer, but can also work for wedding photographers who are working with the bride, groom, or family members. 

Invariable, cropping can occur in post production for still photographers, however, this guide will help you get the most from your shots during the photo shoot. There are 9 shot frames used with 4 of them being the most common: full shot, medium shot, close-up shot, and the extreme close-up shot.

A list of the 9 camera shot frames:

Full Shot (FS): Just as the name implies, the image captures the full body shot of your model.

Full Shot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Medium Full Shot (MFS): This camera shot is typically cropped at the knees and show everything above the knees on your model.

medium full shot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Medium Shot (MS): This is your standard medium shot which is cropped below the waist around the pubic bone area.

medium shot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Medium Close Shot (MCS): The medium close shot is cropped slightly above the waist-line of your model.

medium close shot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Close-Up Shot (CUS): The standard close-up shot is cropped slightly mid-chest/ under the arm pit area of your model.

close-up shot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wide Close-Up (WCU): The wide close-up shot is cropped at upper chest of your model.

wide close up

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Full Close-Up (FCU): The full close-up shot is typically used as your head shot image for models or portraits, corporate or acting, etc. This shot is cropped at the top of the shoulders.

full close up

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Medium Close-Up (MCU): The medium close-up shot is cropped at the neck area of your model.

medium close up

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Extreme Close-Up (ECU): The extreme close-up is cropped tight and above the chin. Used for more dramatic shots and focus on the face for intensity.

extreme close up

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images copyright Alyn Stafford. Model: Jessica. All rights reserved. You may link to this article. Images may not be reproduced electronically or in print without the expresse written permission of Alyn Stafford.
 
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Creating A Quick Photoshop Sepia Tone Effect

Sepia, pronounced, “see-pee-uh”, is originally a brown pigment obtained from the ink like secretion of various cuttlefish and was originally used as ink for writing. Later, a more concentrated form was produced for use in watercolor paintings. Photographs of the 1800’s where primarily printed on paper that was not acid free and as they aged, the photograph turned brown or “aged”.

In modern photography, dyes where used to dip the printed black and white photo and recreate that “aged” look. The age looked is still popular and much simpler and less messy to accomplish in digital photography using photo editing software such as Adobe Photoshop.

While there are several techniques and third party plug-ins you can use and purchase to accomplish the sepia toned look in a digital photograph, the technique I explain below is quick and simple and doesn’t require fussing with duotones or quadtones. I picked this technique up from a digital photo lab I use and this is basically how they convert their images to sepia tone.

My directions will be for Photoshop CS2, however, this will work in any Photoshop version on a PC or Mac. Additionally, other image editing software that has a color balance option will work as well.

Step 1

Open your color image in Photoshop. FILE>OPEN

Photoshop tutorial wedding photo

Step 2

You will need to convert your image to Black and White. I use image editing plug-ins to accomplish this, however, for simplicity, you can use Photoshops “Desaturate” option: IMAGE>ADJUST>DESATURATE . This will provide you with a grey scale version of your color image. See the image below:
black and white photo

Step 3

You’re now ready to create your sepia toned photo. From your Photoshop menu, select: IMAGE>ADJUST>COLOR BALANCE:
You now should see your dialog box at teh top of your dialog box, there are 3 small input boxes where you will input the following information (see image below):

  • First box, place the number 30
  • Second box, leave it at “0?
  • Third box, place a -20 (that’s minus) in the box

    • You will notice that the sliders below the input boxes will move toward the Red channel and the Yellow channel. You should now see that your image has transformed from a black and white photo to a sepia toned photo. You can experiment with the tone by adjusting the numbers or sliders, but the combination I have provided makes for a mild sepia toned image.

    photoshop sepia

    I have found that the best images to convert to sepia tone are those with good highlights in them and images that are not heavy in vegitation or have lots of dark areas. While any image can be converted, not every image will look good as a sepia toned image.

    Here I have the final image in sepia tone. I added the border for effect using Auto F/X Edges. (A third party Photoshop Plug-in).

    final sepai photo