Design solutions/ideas/examples/sugestions for good looking cropped images in a product booklet

Question

I am doing this booklet for some chairs and I have a problem. The problem is that I have small images, but the booklet is intended for A4 print. I will post 2 images to explain my problem.

What I would like to do:

But I can't do this, as to do this I have to enlarge the image and it would look bad when I print it...

What I can do with the image at it's actual size without enlarging it:

Do you have any suggestions on how to crop the image at its actual size so that it looks better without modifying the crop area ?

The idea is that the crop area is aligned with the copy on the right hand side. It starts at the top of the page to align with the title, and it ends at the end of the description text(the text in the column under the title).

Any suggestions are welcome ! (getting a larger image is the only solution, of course, but sadly there is no larger image)

What would you do ?

Answer 1

This is a little confusing - it sounds like you're asking if there's a way to scale this image to match the cropping you want to perform in the first image. As you've already stated, you can't do this unless you have a larger image. My suggestions would either be:

a) Find / create a larger image. If you're performing this for the manufacturer's sake they must either have larger images or a chair that can be re-photographed.
b) Use the existing uncropped image (the one you show in the second example) and replace the background with something that's not white. Alternately, you could completely remove the background (you'll have to give it some kind of border since you're not showing the whole chair and it would look funny with the edges of the chair just lopped off and hanging in space). Possibly that same red line you've used already?

It's a neat looking layout; good luck.

Answer 2

This is a situation I'm all too familiar with. I do a lot of work in the entertainment field, and the concept of "high resolution image" seems to be beyond many artists' managements. My approach here, if a higher-resolution image was simply unobtainable, would be to start with the crop I wanted at the minimum resolution I could get away with (1.5 x lpi screen frequency for offset, 150 ppi for inkjet or laser reproduction).

Once I had that, I'd continue below (or above) the hero image with square or rectangular blocks very tightly cropped to show only the texture of the covering. Ideally, these should be the same height as your headline caps or an exact fraction (1/2, 1/3). I'd use row(s) of two or three small blocks in a grid to fill out the dimension you need. Grid spacing should be the same as the stroke weight of your headline type. (So should your red stripe, by the way. It looks subtly overweight at the moment.)

If you're careful with the spacing and proportions it will fit right in with your beautifully geometric layout and look like you intended to do it that way all along.

For super-sophistication, I'd probably experiment with simply repeating a portion of the main image, but broken up into a grid so it looks like you're highlighting details.