Las Vegas Portrait Photographer – How to Crop Portraits

Cropping is one of the most essential skills that a Las Vegas photographer can develop. And when you’re working with Las Vegas headshot photographer work, it’s even more important to know how to crop portraits in a way that makes sense, is flattering, and creates a successful composition for the final photo.

There are a lot of different ways to crop portraits, and no Las Vegas headshot photographer will give you the same exact advice on which is the “best” way. However, if you keep the following advice based on our own experiences in mind, you will find it much less difficult to decide on the final cropping for your Las Vegas headshot photographer portrait work.

Don’t crop above the head

While this is subjective, we’ve found that cropping the top of a portrait’s head creates an unfinished feeling composition that won’t be flattering on the gallery of any Las Vegas headshot photographer. This is especially noticeable for portrait photographs with props or interesting shoot locations and backdrops, more so than standard headshots with blank backgrounds that are intended for ID or business purposes.

Don’t crop joints, fingers, or toes!

If there’s anything you should never crop out of a photographer, it’s cropping out fingers, toes, or cropping at the joints themselves. Cropping at these locations creates very unflattering compositions and are generally disliked by clients as well. Any Las Vegas photographer who has found themselves at the other end of an unhappy client who is mad about their missing feet can certainly tell you that!

Know where to crop

For the best cropping results, we’ve found that cropping below the knee, mid-thigh, waist and across the forearm is the best option for portrait photographs. This style avoids the awkwardness that comes with cropping out joints and fingers while retaining a solid sense of composition for a portrait photo.

Final thoughts

Cropping is a subjective art, so take the above advice and work with it to make your own informed decisions about the best places to crop as a Las Vegas headshot photographer.

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