RULE OF THIRDS by Mark Laurie FSWPP

THE RULE OF THIRDS HAS ALWAYS BEEN A POWERFUL COMPOSITION GUIDE IN ART. In the old enlarger days it was pretty easy toget, mark out a template of the golden rule to size and adjust the enlarger projection until it all fell in place. Then expose. Photoshop provides a digital way to easily recreate this.

Create a new document. File>new. Name it Golden Rule, Width 16in, Height 20in, resolution 72, Mode RGB and contents White [1]. For a horizontal rule of thirds just duplicate these instructions using a landscape format image (or rotate, see later).

The resolution of 72 is for your screen; we don’t need it any larger, regardless of the file size of the print we are applying the rule of thirds to.

Go to View>Show>Grid. We will be using the grid as a template to draw on. No maths or measuring needed. Now go to Edit>Preferences>Guides &Grid. [2]. Leave the colour and style as is. Enter 33.3 in the Gridline Every box; change the box beside it to percent. Set the Subdivision box value to 2. You can increase the subdivision if you want to better fine tune the area of impact around the rule of thirds convergence points. Then go to Displays & Cursor, set your painting cursor to precise and brush size. Click on OK to close.

The white image should have a grid dividing it equally into thirds by the solid color and then finer lines dividing it further. [3]. These grid lines are not part of the image, just an overlay guide.

RULE OF THIRDS

Double click on the magnifying tool to enlarge image to 100%. Change the foreground colour to white.

RULE OF THIRDS

In the toolbox select the line tool, [4] or just press the U key. In the options bar at the top, set your line width to 5px. The other settings should be: the first box on the left (create new shape layer) should be highlighted, the diagonal line should be highlighted, the layer style should be no style, mode normal and opacity 100%.

Starting at the top of each grid line, position your cursor so the cross hairs line up with the grid line. Holding the shift key down, click and drag the cursor down to the bottom of the image. Photoshop will scroll down when you come to the bottom of the window. At the end of the grid release the mouse button, then the shift key. The shift key keeps the line being drawn to a vertical or horizontal line, no matter where the mouse strays as you draw. Repeat this for all four lines.

Now we need a frame around the template. Select all, command/crtl + A. Set the foreground color to black. Go to Edit>Stroke. In the stroke dialogue box enter Width: 5px, Location: center, Blending: normal and Opacity:100%. [5]. Flatten your image. Layers>Flatten Image. The Rule of Thirds template is done. [6]

RULE OF THIRDS

Open your image. Mine is horizontal but we don’t have to recreate the template. Make the template image active. To make this template horizontal, go to Image>Rotate Canvas>90 Degrees. Change to the move tool, (V), click drag the template over to your image. [7]. In the Layers Palette, change the blending mode (palette option just below the word layer in the layers palette) to Multiply. This makes the two layers interact in a way that the white vanishes. [8].

Go to Edit>Transform>Scale. Place the cursor inside the template, hold the mouse key down and position the template so the intersecting lines are over an impact point. In this Zebra image I have chosen the foreground zebra face. Move the cursor to one of the corners until you see a diagonal line with arrows on each end. Hold the shift key down, then click and drag to size the template. The shift key keeps the aspect ratio of the selection intact as it sizes. You will probably have to alternate between moving the selection and sizing it until you have what you want. Once you do, double click inside the selection. Switch to the image layer.

RULE OF THIRDS

Select the Crop Tool, C. In the options bar at the top, enter a width of 20in, a height of 16in (reverse if vertical) and a resolution for the printer, in our case 150. Place the Crop Tool at the top corner of the template; drag it down to the bottom corner. Double click inside to crop. Drag the template into the trashcan and save. [9].

RULE OF THIRDS

If you want to have an odd-shaped image but still use the golden rule, no problem. Bring up the Transform>Scale. Don’t hold the shift key down. As you change the shape of the template, it keeps the division of thirds in place. [10]. Apply your crop as before.

But you still want a 16x20 for competition? Go to Image>Canvas Size. Enter height and width to 16in by 20in. In the layers palette create a new layer, fill with the colour you want; Edit>Fill. To get a colour other than black or white, double click on the foreground color in the toolbox and choose your colour before you Edit>Fill. Drag the new layer below your image layer, you may have to remove the layer lock first, hold the alt + command/crtl keys down and double click on the locked layer.

RULE OF THIRDS

In the image layer use the Magic Wand to select the band of pixels created by the larger canvas and press the delete key to remove. You can now see through to the next layer. If you don’t want a colour but a texture or image below just add, or alter, to suit.

To position the image on the canvas use the Move Tool, dragging the image into place. When finished, flatten the image. [11].

As a composition tool, the rule of thirds, in its simplest form, can transform an image. Frank Kristian did PPoC’s (Professional Photographers of Canada) first fellowship paper on it. It is a detailed exploration on deep into the use of this approach. I really recommend getting a copy from PPoC and learning it. You can further improve this template by using the continual divisions of thirds described in the book, just extend the approach. An additional guide to the template is to define the impact point better. At the start I had you set the grids to a subdivision of two. If you turn the grids back on in the template you will see that around the centre of each intersection is a perfect square. By marking this area out you will have a guide to the impact point area to work in as well.

RULE OF THIRDS

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