Photoshop, Rule of Thirds
MarkR
Registered Users Posts: 2,099 Major grins
Well, I have to believe that someone else on dgrin (besides me) didn't know about this, so I'm posting it.
One of the big advantages of digital is that you can crop a mediocre picture and make a better one out of it. One way to do that is to compose your picture so that items of visual interest fall into the intersection of imaginary gridlines that fall 1/3 of the way around the picture.
Far better to do this when you compose your picture, of course. But I'm not that clever.:dunno
Photoshop can be made to show you the actual gridlines, so if you're spacially challenged (as I am) and don't want to hold a ruler up to your LCD, you can use this technique to guide your cropping.
First, go to Preferences --> Guides, Grids, and Slices. Under "grid" choose a color you want. I like yellow because it stands out. Change grid lines to "every 33.33" "percent."
Now open a picture that needs help. Here's one of George Eastman's funeral marker on Lake Avenue in Rochester,NY:
Needs help! That funeral marker is smack dab in the middle of the picture! BORING! :rolleyes
We'll turn on our gridlines like so:
And we get the following:
Just as I thought! The marker's in the middle. No wonder everyone's yawning. :doh
Now we crop until the marker's where we want it (Apple-Z to undo!)
Bullseye! Do some last minute tweaking and turn off the gridlines (the same way you turned them on) and congratulate yourself on your compositional genius.:scratch:D
One of the big advantages of digital is that you can crop a mediocre picture and make a better one out of it. One way to do that is to compose your picture so that items of visual interest fall into the intersection of imaginary gridlines that fall 1/3 of the way around the picture.
Far better to do this when you compose your picture, of course. But I'm not that clever.:dunno
Photoshop can be made to show you the actual gridlines, so if you're spacially challenged (as I am) and don't want to hold a ruler up to your LCD, you can use this technique to guide your cropping.
First, go to Preferences --> Guides, Grids, and Slices. Under "grid" choose a color you want. I like yellow because it stands out. Change grid lines to "every 33.33" "percent."
Now open a picture that needs help. Here's one of George Eastman's funeral marker on Lake Avenue in Rochester,NY:
Needs help! That funeral marker is smack dab in the middle of the picture! BORING! :rolleyes
We'll turn on our gridlines like so:
And we get the following:
Just as I thought! The marker's in the middle. No wonder everyone's yawning. :doh
Now we crop until the marker's where we want it (Apple-Z to undo!)
Bullseye! Do some last minute tweaking and turn off the gridlines (the same way you turned them on) and congratulate yourself on your compositional genius.:scratch:D
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Comments
I must confess that I just sort of eye ball the composition myself. Maybe I should give this a whirl.
Some cameras that accept interchangeable viewing screens, have a model with lines in the 1/3 corners so you can compose that way in the camera viewfinder too
Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
http://jane-alexander.smugmug.com/
This way though every time I open up a new image, the grid is already up and it shows us that either the shot was (hopefully) composed right or it needs some love.
Instead of ctrl/cmd+z though:
Double click on your background layer then select 'OK'.
This will unlock your background layer so you can now move your image wherever perfection lies, (the grids stay attached to the canvas) then your favorite crop method.
Just select the move tool (v) to grab your 'new layer'.
Can barely see the grids on this screenshot. They are there though.
-Jon
I found a tutorial that walks through building the custom shape and using it to make crops. I did the setup and found I don't use it. It's easier for me to eyeball the crops and then Command-' to see the grid lines.
PS -- I wish I could take photos like you got there.