When I think about cropping now, however, I realize that I had an unnecessary, though common, fear. Like me, you'll find that no one would recommend that you crop all your photos. However, by cropping some of your photographs, you'll be able to include more on a page. In fact, many photographs are made better by cropping, even before you put them in a layout in an album.
Professional photographers crop their pictures all the time.
You just don't realize it because you rarely see the uncropped version. I had the fortune of getting to keep the negatives and proofs for my wedding photographs and bridal portraits. In most of the portrait negatives you can see beyond the edges of the backdrop. At printing time, however, those portions were cropped off and the prints were fantastic. Click here to see before and after views of this photograph.