On this video tutorial, Aaron Nace from Phlearn takes a look at 3 different guides that will help you make a better composition in Photoshop.
The best way to compose an image is in camera. If you learn how to train yourself to compose in camera you will have less work in post, get higher res images (no cropping) and will get better results.
However, even if you train yourself you still might want to improve your original composition in post and here is where Nace’s tips come into place. He uses the Crop Tool in Photoshop which provides useful guides for some of the most common compositional techniques.
Nace refers to the rule of thirds, golden ratio, and the golden triangle – all three are well known but you don’t need to treat them as hard rules but more as general guidelines that you can use or diverge from but you should definitely be familiar with.
When you choose the crop tool you have a small grid – when you press it you have all sorts of options including the three we mentioned above. What Nace tries to demonstrate is how to use these guides in a way that will make your images simpler (less packed) and emphasize the subject of your photo while reducing the number of unwanted elements.
One of the most important tips that Nace gives in this tutorial is using shift>o to rotate the guides – this will allow you to fit different images into the guides better. Some guides are a better fit for a certain type of images and of course, there might be images that won’t fit any (or fit more than one) and as we mentioned before – these are just guides, not hard rules.
You can find many more Photoshop video tutorials on LensVid’s Photoshop section (and you can find a lot more Phlearn videos on our special Phlearn subsection).
Iddo Genuth 
You can support LensVid by shopping with our affiliate partners
Affiliates: Amazon, B&H, Adorama and E-bay.
Why should you trust us?