Today, I want to show you how to find the best composition from digital photos on PhotoShop. You know what? It’s probably a lot easier than you think!

Almost every artist who has ever wielded brush or pencil has also explored compositional ideas when deciding what to paint. Thumbnail sketches, color studies, even framing a composition with your hands if you’re working outside are all good methods for finding the best composition before you start drawing or painting.

In this age of technology, artists have a few new tools to aid them in composing artwork. The process can begin with your camera, but it doesn’t end there.

I used a Macintosh G4 and Photoshop 7.0 for this demonstration, but you can do pretty much the same thing with any photo editor on any computer. The steps may be different, but the results will be the same.

How to Find the Best Composition from Digital Photos on PhotoShop

The Reference Photo

Reference photos should be the best possible. Good lighting. Good contrast. Sharpness of image.

You can make changes in contrast or brightness, and even adjust color. Since I do a lot of composing through the lens of the camera, most of the images I use for reference already have the best available lighting, contrast, and color. It just saves time.

This image was taken on a cloudy day with relatively flat light. The lighting and color saturation are part of the appeal.

But it’s a pretty boring composition, with the house almost dead center.

Before You Begin Editing

Before doing anything else, save the image with a new name by selecting SAVE AS and giving it whatever name you want. This protects the original photograph so if you mess up, you can start over with the original. Choose a name and naming system that makes sense to you, is easy to file, AND easy to find and retrieve later.

I named this one Old Stone House Reference.jpg and put it into a separate file dedicated to this project.

Cropping the Image

The best first step is usually cropping the original image to focus on the subject.  Creating three or four—or half a dozen—different crops may be all it takes to find the best composition.

Choose the SELECTION tool from the toolbox on the left of this screen shot. In most versions of PhotoShop, this will be the tool at the upper left of the toolbox. (See the gray box in the toolbox).

Select the area you want by placing your cursor at one corner of the desired area and dragging it downward and across the part you want to crop. The result will be a dotted line outline as shown above. The area inside the box is your selection.

Next, select the IMAGE drop down menu and choose CROP.

Your image now looks like this. Save it using the SAVE AS function and give it a new name. This is now old-stone-house-comp-01.jpg but you can choose any name and numbering system that works for you.

You can make as many compositions as you like by repeating the steps above. Begin with the reference photo each time. I ended up with five different options for this image. Two of the others are shown here.

As you can see, the only limitation is your imagination.

Resizing Compositions

Once you’ve selected your favorite compositions, you can resize them to suit the needs of your drawing or painting.

Under the IMAGE drop down menu, click on IMAGE SIZE.

That will bring up this dialogue box.

Set the size by pixel in the top two boxes. You can also set size in the next two boxes.

Multiple measuring systems are available under DOCUMENT SIZE, including inches, picas, metric, and columns.

Changing Resolution

You can also change the pixel density in the image by changing the resolution. The higher the number, the finer the resolution and the larger the file.

Most cameras automatically capture images at a low resolution, but offer ways to increase resolution. It is better to take pictures with a higher resolution, because you’ll capture more detail. But those files will require more memory on your camera.

In other words, you’ll have higher quality images, but will be able to take fewer of them. Especially if you’re limited to a memory card or an older camera.

Make Sure to Keep Proper Porportions

The last thing I’ll mention in this dialogue box is the option to CONSTRAIN PROPORTIONS. When you choose this option, the enlarged or reduced image has the same proportions as the original. If you don’t check this box, you can change one dimension without changing the other and the result will be a distorted image. For the majority of work, you’ll want to check this box.

Once you’ve made your selections, click OK.

Repeat these steps for each of the compositions you’ve created.

If you compose intuitively or by eye, you’ll be able to tell which compositions are working and which aren’t.

If you need more concrete tools for evaluating the compositions, continue reading.

Evaluating the Compositions

The two best tools I know of for evaluating or fine tuning compositions is the Rule of Thirds, and the Golden Mean.

The Rule of Thirds divides a compostion into even thirds vertically and horizontally.

The Golden Mean also divides a composition into thirds, but along the Golden mean.

In both cases, the idea is to place the main points of interest in the composition on one of the four places where two lines intersect.

It’s much easier to calculate even thirds than the Golden Mean, so that’s what I’ll show you.

How to Draw the Rule of Thirds

However, some photo editors have preset grids that allow you to crop by the Rule of Thirds or the Golden Mean. Irfanview is one such photo editor.

Chose the drop down menu labeled LAYER and select NEW, then select LAYER.

On this new layer, place a line one-third of the way across the top and another line at two-thirds. Lines should also be drawn at one-third and two-thirds along the side as well.

Hold down the shift key as you draw the line to keep the line straight and on the square.

To make this easier, I set the size of the image to a number divisible by three. By setting the width of the image at 30, for example, I can easily place a line at 10 and another at 20 and have the image divided into thirds.

Change the height to a number divisible by three and place the lines.

TIP: Select a color for the lines that does not blend into the image. My favorite color for this process is red because it’s easy to see and I rarely use red for any other part of the digital composition process.

Below is the first composition with the one-third grid in place.

And here is the panorama composition with the one-third grid in place. It, too, could do with just a bit of tweaking to get the subject in one of the sweet spots.

The sweet spots in the composition are where two lines meet. It applies to the one-third rule, which I’m using here, and to the Golden Mean, which also divides a composition into thirds, but not equal thirds.

Conclusion

This is one way to find the best composition from digital images. As I mentioned at the beginning, you can use the same basic procedure with any photo editor. I’ve used IrfanView and GIMP in the same way. Both are free to download.

Putting a drawing grid on a digital photo may seem like a small matter. For many artists, however, it’s a major challenge.

I can draw a horse in almost any position, but I can’t draw a straight line.

Even with a straight edge.

Sound familiar?

For years, I’ve developed the line drawings for portraits using the grid method of drawing from reference photos. I’ve been drawing that way for so long that I started before the days of personal computers and photo processing software.

In other words, I had to draw every single line by hand.

I hated it! I never seemed able to get the measurements correct and usually ended up having to correct distortions in the resulting drawings.

Eventually, I discovered drawing reference grids on pieces of plastic using permanent markers. I could then lay the pre-drawn grids over reference photos. I still had to draw a grid for each drawing, but that was better than drawing one on the photo, too.

Then along came computers and digital photos and I no longer had to draw grids of any kind! Woo-hoo! Jubilation and a happy dance!

Here’s how I put grids on reference photos now.

TIP: If my references are actual printed photographs, I scan them into the computer first.

Here’s my subject for this tutorial. I always look for good lighting from a clear light source, accurate color, and a minimum of distracting elements overlapping your subject.

How to Put a Drawing Grid on a Digital Photo

Step 1: Save your reference photo with a new name.

Open your reference photo, then select the “SAVE AS” option and save your reference with a new name. I usually use the working title for the drawing or painting.  You want to do this before you make any changes, even to color. That way, if you make a mistake you can’t correct, you can go back to the original photo and start over.

TIP: Save your photo periodically and rename it by adding a number (1, 2, 3, etc.) or letter (a, b, c, etc.) to the end of the name. These additional copies act as backups. You don’t need to save them forever, but they should be kept until you’ve finished all changes to your reference photo.

Step 2: Crop and resize the reference photo if necessary.

Do any cropping and resizing necessary and save it again. I generally name every document used for a painting with the title of the painting or the name of the horse and the date. This image was saved as grid-drawing-demo-01.jpg. Make sure the names you choose make sense to you and can be easily remembered.

Step 3: Adjust your rulers

Before you begin, make sure rulers are showing. Photoshop’s default setting is to have the vertical and horizontal rulers showing.

You can change the measurements if you wish, if the default setting of inches doesn’t work with the size of your photo. Most photo editing software allows you to hide or show rulers, and also choose inches, millimeters, picas, and other measurements.

Step 4: Add a new layer to the photo.

Before you begin drawing the grid, add a new layer. In most versions of PhotoShop, click on the drop-down LAYER menu, click on ‘NEW’ and select ‘LAYER’.

NOTE: I’m using PhotoShop 7.0 on a Macintosh G4. Your drop-down menus may look different.

Step 5: Begin drawing the grid.

Now you can draw the grid on the new layer. Select the LINE DRAWING tool from the toolbox on the left (see the gray box in the image below).

Choose a color that shows up well against whatever image you’re working with. Black works with most. White works best with most darker images, but I’ve also used red or blue, depending on the color, value, and color temperature of the image.

Choose the space between the lines that best suits your project. I draw lines at one inch intervals. Beginning at the top left corner, I draw the first line at 1″ and continue across the image to the right.

Return to the upper left hand corner and draw lines along the left side.

To get straight lines and square boxes, hold down the shift key as you place the cursor and while you draw the lines.

Step 6: Number the grid

The last step in the process is numbering the grid. Select the TEXT tool from the toolbox (see the gray box on the left in the image below). Place the cursor in the upper left hand corner. Beginning with 1, type a number in each box across the top of the image. Repeat this for the bottom row of squares and for the squares along the left and right sides of the image, if you wish.

If the image is very large, you may want to consider adding a row of numbers through the middle of the image and a column down the center.

This is the finished grid.

Step 7: Make a printable drawing grid.

The reason I draw the grid on a fresh layer comes into play at this point.

With the image on one layer and the grid on another, I can remove the image and have the grid alone. The grid can then be printed and used for the first draft of the drawing. Make sure to save the grid by itself.

You can also print the image with the grid in place (see the image for the previous step) and have a reference image and drawing grid that are the same configuration and are numbered the same.

Step 8: Prepare the grid and reference to be saved as a jpg file.

The final step is optional and that’s preparing the image to be saved as a jpg.

In PhotoShop, images with multiple layers are automatically saved as .psd files. PSD files are not suitable for most internet uses or emails. In order to save them as jpg or png files or any other online compatible files, you first need to flatten the image (combine the layers into one layer).

To do that, select the LAYER drop down menu and go to the bottom. Select FLATTEN IMAGE to combine all the layers into a single layer. You can now save the gridded image as a jpg file.

Recommendations

I highly recommend saving the image at least twice during the process. Once after the grid is in place and numbered but before you flatten the image (see Step 6) and again as the grid without the image (Step 5).

I also save the image afterward. With this ‘save’ I change the image to a JPG format. JPG files are generally smaller and more versatile than PSD files.

But don’t throw away those PSD files! You never know when you may need to go back to them to print another copy or resize the image or for some other unforeseen reason.

Conclusion

That’s how I put a drawing grid on a digital photo. It looks time-consuming and complicated, but even the most complex digital grid is much easier to make than hand drawing it.

As I mentioned previously, if you use something other than Photoshop, the commands and function names may be different. It is well worth your time to learn how to put a grid on your digital photos if you use the grid method.