Whether you are wondering how to best crop your photos for frames, or figuring out the best treatment for a holiday card, there are steps you can take that help your photos make the best impact!

CROPPING - Images which are more candid, like the one above of little Zoe, maintain their impact and joy by not being cropped in. When you view it, you know immediately that she is reacting to her dad making playing with her as he walks towards her. Crop him out, and you lose the charm of than human connection.
Same goes for photos like this one below, where the environment contributes to the photo’s all around effect.

When you’re looking at your posed family photos however, you may need to crop them depending on their shape when I take them, and the shape of the print you’d like to make.

In this instance, keep the following in mind;
The focus on the photo should be the people in it, so when you can, crop in a bit so it’s all about the subject, being careful not to crowd too much or cut-off anybody or their limbs.

In the family shots below, the one on the left is lovely as-is, but if you’d like to make a 5x7 print out of it, bringing the crop in, as the red border in the bottom right shows, it makes the image even more about the people than the environment. Just remember to not crowd them too much, especially if you might put it into a frame with a mat in it, since they will cover a bit of the print itself!