Cropping a photo
for better layout
PhiMatrix can be used to
crop a photo to use phi-based proportions to give a better sense of balance and
composition.
Start with the original photo
sailboat.jpg below:
If the Border Size is greater than zero, reduce it to zero so that your final photo
will be the same size as the grid.
Adjust the grid to the size you want by clicking and dragging. It's
easier to get exact sizes if you drag the horizontal and vertical sides
separately. In this case, set the H Width to 480 and V Height to 360.
Click on the horizontal and vertical line counters to add lines to highlight
key elements of the photo. In this case, four horizontal lines were
selected by setting H Lines to 3 and H Axis to Both to mirror the top and
bottom. Three vertical lines were used by setting V Lines to 3 and V Axis
to Left.
Move the grid up and down to align the grid lines with the key elements of
the photo. In this case, the horizontal phi lines were aligned with the
horizon of the sky, the deck of the ship and the tops of the small sail and
forward mast. The vertical phi
lines were aligned with the main mast of the sail and the front and back of the
boat.
Eliminate the grid lines from your photo by setting the Transparency to zero.
Click on the Snapshot icon (Camera) to save your cropped photo in an image
format of your choice, either gif, jpg, pict, png or bmp.
Note how the cropped photo looks in comparison to the original photo above
and how it gives a much better sense of balance and composition:
 |
 |
| Before - Original |
After - Balanced & Cropped |
To use PhiMatrix to crop an image to a standard photo size, do the following.
- Set the Aspect to the desired photo size, e.g., Photo 5x7, for instance.
- Set the Orientation to Landscape.
- Set the H Lines and V Lines to the number
of lines needed to position key elements of the photo according to phi or
golden section proportions.
- Click and drag the upper border to position the grid to desired upper left
position on the image.
- Click and drag on the lower right hand corner of the grid to adjust to the
desired grid size.
- Position the grid over the photo so that the key elements of the photo
fall on the grid lines.
- Set the Line Width to zero to eliminate the grid lines from the photo.
- Click on the snapshot icon (Camera) to save your cropped photo in an image
format of your choice.
Cropping using the Golden Spiral
Here's another example of photo cropping using the Golden Spiral Option.
This is the original photo, shown below at a reduced size of the original high
resolution photo.
Use the "View - Golden Spiral - Landscape - Lower Left" template option to
identify a focus point of the image based on the focal point of the Golden
Spiral as below. Note that in this case the Aspect Ratio of the grid was
set to 4:3 rather than Phi. Size the grid to capture the most interesting
part of the image.
To eliminate the spiral grid from the image, set the
Transparency to zero. (As an option, if you want to keep a border around
the image, set the Grid Color to black and set the H Axis to "None" to leave the
border without any interior grid lines of the spiral.)
Then crop the photo by using the "File - Copy Image" or "File - Save Image"
function in PhiMatrix to get just that part of the image.
For a finishing touch, open the image in your digital photo
editing program of choice, your system's image viewer or a browser so that it is displayed against a
solid background color. Position the PhiMatrix grid over the image again and then use
the "View - Border Size - Golden Matte Out From Grid" to get put a
matte area around the image. This PhiMatrix Golden Matte function creates a border whose area is
in the Golden Ratio of, or 1.618 times, the area of the image itself, an optimal size for
overall aesthetics and balance.
Matte the photo by using the "File - Save Image"
function again in PhiMatrix to save the matted image with the new border.
So there is the finished cropped and matted image, no longer just a stock
photo but now a work of art ready for framing, all done with Golden Ratios. |
