Cropping is the way to go, in my humble opinion. I'm a horrible photographer and usually end up with "stuff" in the foreground or background I don't necessarily want to keep. It also helps get more pictures on each page if you crop off the parts you don't want. Its much easier to be creative when working with different size photos too. However, if I ever get around to doing a heritage album, I'll probably keep the very old photos in tact.

I'm eager to hear what everyone else has to say on this topic!

I crop a lot of my pictures. I don't like the background stuff distracting from the focal point of the picture (unless what is in the background is part of the picture I wanted to capture). I like the variety it gives the page to have a couple of different size pictures on it.

When I get my film developed I always get doubles. That way I'm not so worried about cropping something out I might want to look back on years later. I have a set of pictures to cut up, and the others are stored away. A lot of places like grocery stores that develope film usually have one day a week that you can get the second set free.

Hmmm...good question. Personally, I think being able to crop photos is one of the things that marks scrapping off from just "putting photos into an album". In other words, cropping can be such a useful tool (i.e. to bring better focus onto the subjects, to "correct" a poorly framed photo, etc). BUT, I do hear ya on those heritage photos, Tandy. You don't want to mess with those too much. The argument I hear most for "not to crop" is that years from now, you'll want to see that old car captured in the background or that big bush next to the porch that happened to get into the shot. You *are* trying to preserve memories when you scrap, right? I guess it depends on what it is exactly you want to preserve -- for me, the album I've done is specifically meant to capture the essence of a human relationship, not so much the environment surrounding it.

Geeze, did I pick a side? I think I did...I say, CROP! Ooh, but not those old black and white heritage photos. :o\

I crop most of my photos. When I first started scrapping, I would almost ALWAYS crop them into one of the shapes that Creative Memories has on their templates. As I started getting the hang of things, I rarely use the templates now, but do use my paper trimmer to "crop" the photo smaller,and to get rid of anything unwanted in the picture. I have also started to crop the photos into shapes that I have with my stenciling templates. Just finished a double page spread of my boys in a park by Lake Ontario in the fall..I cropped them all in the shapes of Maple Leaves, mounted each in fall coloured paper, cut strips of brown paper and formed a "wreath" shape and put the kids pictures in and "around" the wreath, along with fall leaf die cuts. Topped it off with a burgundy bow...looks kinda cool, if I do say so myself!! :)
I think it takes a while to develop your own personal style..
~mar~

I always get double prints of my photos when they are
developed.

I have many plastic Rubbermaid photo storage boxes I
got for $1.99 each at our local Big Lots store. The
boxes come with storage envelopes.

As soon as I get my photos back from the developer, I
take an envelope out of the box, I write on the
envelope what kinds of photos they are and a date. I
take one set of pictures out and put the other set of
photos plus the negatives in that envelope and back
into the photo storage box. I never use that second set
of prints.

Then I am free to crop the first set of prints as I see
fit.

As long as I have the negatives and one additional
print of a photos I will crop. If I only have the
original photo then I do not crop.

I am relatively new to this acid free, crop til you drop, world of Creative Memories. I just loved Mar's (from her posting on Wed, Feb 9, 00)idea of the maple leaf shapes! I recently spent an entire day croping with a friend and had a wonderful time. I am curious as to how much time it takes others to complete say 2 full pages, that is front and back?
My friend was working on a travel album for a recent trip to Europe. Many of her pictures were of the unique architecture... she actually croped some of her pictures along the roof lines of homes, or across the adjoining roof lines of several buildings along an entire city block. It really looked great!
I am about to go to a crop where I've been asked to bring only blank pages and adhesive. I'm rather skeptical about designing pages without knowing the pictures I'll be using on them. Has anyone do this before?

Here is a link that might be useful: That Home Site!

A good way to approach cropping is by taking the time to look at YOUR old childhood photos. What is it you notice? Your puppy sniffing a bush off to the side? Your favorite teddy bear laying under a table? Your sled leaning up against a shed in the background? What if YOUR mom had cropped those precious things out? PLEASE crop carefully and with caution. :o)

I don't crop much because I love BIG photos. I guess its the yearbook advisor in me. In photography there is also the "rule of thirds" which I apply to much of my picture-taking (and no, I'm not even close to being a professional) and if I cropped too much, all of my beautiful background would go to waste. Anyhow, I think it is a personal preference, but just once, try a page with 3-4 big beautiful photos and see how it looks!

I'm with Pam. I crop very carefully and only after giving each picture a lot of thought. Sometimes the background gives reference to other things going on at the time that makes the whole picture significant. I also agree with Kerrikay that a few big (in my case 4x6) pictures on the page is nice, and I think it is also easier to view and usually enough to tell the story. Just be careful you don't cut out something that 30 years from now would mean something to you.

First, you should know that I'm a big cropper. However . .
recently I started a 40th tribute album for dear old hubby. And I had to show him some of the photos that I had "stolen" from his dad's magnetic albums. It was so interesting to see him look at the photos and the items in the background would start whole stories about his life. It made me be much more aware of what I crop in my kids pictures. I know we all read the journaling but the pictures are what they will be looking at - and a multitude of memories will come up based on what else is in the picture.

Hey Martha!! I don't often come across someone who shares my name!!

I have to admit I am a cropper. I too could you a few photo taking skills and there are too many of my pictures that have half of a person, thumb, blurry, too dark, too light, while the other part of the photo is good. I also buy two sets of prints, but I give one set to my daughter and she gives me one set of hers. That way if one or the others house burns down, (God Forbid, but it happened to my mom) then we don't lose our precious photos. I also feel strongly about cropping the older photos. I think on that subject if I was REALLY interested in cropping one of them then I would go ahead and have a reprint done and crop it, then give the orginal to my daughter uncropped. Penny

My husband was just reading over my shoulder and said, "These women are all full of crop!" Can you believe it? He was being silly, of course. (Read his statement carefully- there are no typos.) It was a pun, a joke, a hehe-haha kind of thing- please don't write me nasty letters! LOL

Anyway, Carla, you are right. As a beginner, I was thrilled to hear all these responses from the seasoned professionals. Boy, oh boy, Mar, are YOU a professional or what?! :)

I think the best suggestion is getting double prints of all your pictures, then label the envelopes and save them in tact. That way, you have a set to keep all those other "background object" memories and focus your scrapbooking on the focal points of the photots.

You could even indicate on the envelopes which scrapbook page(s) used that particular set of pictures. So if you screw up when cutting, or want several copies of the picture on one page, or want to do a whole page over, you can just pull out the right pack of pictures, grab the negative, get a copy made for a quarter (that's all it costs at my grocery store) and voila! Easy organization, too, for when you want to see ALL the pictures from Christmas '99 for example, not just the few you selected for the pages.

I love reading these posts. I just went to a craft store and spent *ahem* dollars on supplies. I haven't completed a full page yet and I'm addicted already! I think I'm in big trouble, don't you?

Thanks for all the wonderful input so far- can't wait to read the new stuff, too!

I do a lot of cropping - and while I agree that there are treasures hidden in some of the old photos from my youth, I take TONS more pictures today than my parents did. I don't think it is necessary to keep EVERYTHING in EVERY photo. I can easily take an entire 36 shot roll (or more) at a single event. That means that many of the pictures can be cropped as much as necessary to focus on the main subject and there will still be lots of details of the event in the overall total group of pictures.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sue's Place - My Virtual Scrapbook