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:
 |
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| 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.
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