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Cropping Guide
A cropping guide: 
Jamie Bamber as Apollo on BSG
This tutorial is in regards to how to crop your image.
Coloring and brush use are not included.
Cropping is an art in and of it self.
Cropping:to cut off the sides of an image to make it the proper size or to remove unwanted parts.
Sometimes you will see a fabulously colored icon, or the text is awesome, but the crop is so horrid that you pass it by. Looking for something more pleasing.
The size of the image that you are going to crop is very important. You need to think about the image, and what you're going to go for, composition wise.
The image I am using here is very large. You can attempt to crop it, but you will end of with just a chin, or eye. This can be done very deliberately, but you have to have a point behind it. Because you can only see a part of the face, you can not tell who it is your iconing. Hence defeating the purpose of using the beautiful Jamie Bamber.
Depending on the technique you may need to alter your photo before resizing. (i.e. skin smoothing, coloring, etc.)
I'm going to resize the image 50% (If you are unsure how much to reduce your image, practice and experiment. There is an undo button for a reason. However, I've found that when you resize the same image multiple times the quality is reduced significantly. If you reduce your picture by 50%, but believe that you need to go further don't resize it down again 50%. Use undo and try 75%.)
The important points to look at when cropping a person:
• Size of the person
• The direction the face or body is pointing
• The distance the face is to the edge of the frame
• Is the hairline visible?
• Are the eyes focused on something?
• The nose / nostrils
• The lips / teeth / chin
• The neck. If you crop off the neck your subject may look stocky, or deformed.
• Background images. Are they going to be easy to cover up? Are they part of the focus of the icon? Do they distract from your goal icon?
Crop 1
The issue with this crop is that the hair is lost. His forehead seems to float off the page. Because he is facing to our left, I placed his right eye close to the edge of the frame. It allows for his focus to be "off-camera."
Crop 2
This is a very simple crop. You have the entire face, the hair line, the neck, and a bit of space to the side to add text if you wanted.
Crop 3
Here you can see that his chin is creeping to the edge of the frame. We loose a bit of his neck as well. Since he has dark hair, and it's on a dark background, you gain nothing from showing more hair.
Crop 4
The chin is now over the edge of the frame. It almost appears that he's being strangled. It's not pretty.
Crop 5
Don't be afraid to move your image out of the 100x100 square. The void space left at the top can be filled in by a brush or text. There are innumerable things you can do with that space. You need to interpret what the rest of the image is. Is he smiling? or frowning? etc. There is a huge issue with this crop. The nostrils.
Crop 6
By just going a bit further it helps. You lose the nostrils and are more focused on the eyes.
Crop 7
By moving his face further off the image you free up space for other brushes, or text.
Crop 8
A centered face usually only works in profile. You don't have any room for other things. The focus of the eyes is lost by being so far from the edge.
Crop 9
And by going even further... Pay attention to the background. The right side of the image was "busy" and therefore your focus was not drawn to any one thing over there. However when you move to the left side of the image there is another body there.
The only thing I did to these icons was resize and sharpen once. You can see the huge difference in the two icons. Simple techniques to try out and experiment. That really is the biggest bit of advise: EXPERIMENT.
Bad vs. Good
Let me know if you found this helpful, or if you catch any errors, so that I can fix them.
Thank you for reading.
Jamie Bamber as Apollo on BSG
This tutorial is in regards to how to crop your image.
Coloring and brush use are not included.
Cropping is an art in and of it self.
Cropping:to cut off the sides of an image to make it the proper size or to remove unwanted parts.
Sometimes you will see a fabulously colored icon, or the text is awesome, but the crop is so horrid that you pass it by. Looking for something more pleasing.
The size of the image that you are going to crop is very important. You need to think about the image, and what you're going to go for, composition wise.
The image I am using here is very large. You can attempt to crop it, but you will end of with just a chin, or eye. This can be done very deliberately, but you have to have a point behind it. Because you can only see a part of the face, you can not tell who it is your iconing. Hence defeating the purpose of using the beautiful Jamie Bamber.
Depending on the technique you may need to alter your photo before resizing. (i.e. skin smoothing, coloring, etc.)
I'm going to resize the image 50% (If you are unsure how much to reduce your image, practice and experiment. There is an undo button for a reason. However, I've found that when you resize the same image multiple times the quality is reduced significantly. If you reduce your picture by 50%, but believe that you need to go further don't resize it down again 50%. Use undo and try 75%.)
The important points to look at when cropping a person:
• Size of the person
• The direction the face or body is pointing
• The distance the face is to the edge of the frame
• Is the hairline visible?
• Are the eyes focused on something?
• The nose / nostrils
• The lips / teeth / chin
• The neck. If you crop off the neck your subject may look stocky, or deformed.
• Background images. Are they going to be easy to cover up? Are they part of the focus of the icon? Do they distract from your goal icon?
Crop 1
The issue with this crop is that the hair is lost. His forehead seems to float off the page. Because he is facing to our left, I placed his right eye close to the edge of the frame. It allows for his focus to be "off-camera."
Crop 2
This is a very simple crop. You have the entire face, the hair line, the neck, and a bit of space to the side to add text if you wanted.
Crop 3
Here you can see that his chin is creeping to the edge of the frame. We loose a bit of his neck as well. Since he has dark hair, and it's on a dark background, you gain nothing from showing more hair.
Crop 4
The chin is now over the edge of the frame. It almost appears that he's being strangled. It's not pretty.
Crop 5
Don't be afraid to move your image out of the 100x100 square. The void space left at the top can be filled in by a brush or text. There are innumerable things you can do with that space. You need to interpret what the rest of the image is. Is he smiling? or frowning? etc. There is a huge issue with this crop. The nostrils.
Crop 6
By just going a bit further it helps. You lose the nostrils and are more focused on the eyes.
Crop 7
By moving his face further off the image you free up space for other brushes, or text.
Crop 8
A centered face usually only works in profile. You don't have any room for other things. The focus of the eyes is lost by being so far from the edge.
Crop 9
And by going even further... Pay attention to the background. The right side of the image was "busy" and therefore your focus was not drawn to any one thing over there. However when you move to the left side of the image there is another body there.
The only thing I did to these icons was resize and sharpen once. You can see the huge difference in the two icons. Simple techniques to try out and experiment. That really is the biggest bit of advise: EXPERIMENT.
Bad vs. Good
Let me know if you found this helpful, or if you catch any errors, so that I can fix them.
Thank you for reading.