Gull....Crop or no Crop

[Ollokot]

A debate is going on within me whether to crop or not,your thoughts and critique would not only be more than welcome,but could help resolve the debate.
Best Wishes Pat.

[arith]

Could try a square crop, maybe taking out the bottom 1/10th.

[Rasbury]

A well shot photo Pat.I love the dof in this image.If you lean towards any cropping,then imo maybe on the bottom some to remove the out of focus rocks in the front and on the right side to compensate for scale...Ron.

[JohnC]

Yes, cropping it was my first thought and I'd take some from the left side if only to take out that wee lump of green seaweed covered rock that the eye is drawn too,(just below the surf line and as Steve suggests, some off the bottom some up from the bottom too.

It's a really good sharp shot of a Black-Headed gull. I haven't seen one of them.

[CBImages]

Hi Pat

Great image.
I love a debate about 'how' to crop an image to best effect. I downloaded a copy and played about with several crops and none seemed to work for me, the gull always seemed too central or too cramped in the frame. I then went to work with the clone tool to add a bit more weed to the bottom of the frame, to give the image a base. I then cloned out the offending bit of weed to the left of the image and cropped it in from the right to put the bird more on the right 1/3.
I think it works quite nicely.

Regards

Chris

[Ollokot]

Hi Folks,
Thank you all very much for your reply and constructive comments.The crop I had in mind encompasses the ideas expressed by you all.I thought to keep the aspect ratio and crop from the right and bottom of the image and place the bird in the righthand side of the frame.Also clone out that weedy rock on the left.
Once again thanks to all,Best Wishes,
Pat.

[JohnC]

That'a good crop,Chris.Looks much better now.