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:

Click on the Border Size control and 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 Line Width 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.