Crop Overlays
Pro photographers use this technique to grab your attention all the time!
Imagine it. You’ve just come back from an amazing trip shooting images left to right, up and down - each one looking like a banger on your camera’s LCD screen. Then you get home, eagerly fire up the computer, load up your images and.. something just seems a little bit off about them and you sit there wondering why.
Do the images look heavy on one side? Are there unwanted objects coming into the side of your frame? Does your attention gravitate to something other than your intended subject?
Well, it might be your composition.
But don’t worry! This happens to me and every other professional photographer more frequently than you think. Fortunately, there is a super nifty tool in Lightroom which can help you - the Crop Tool!
Using the Crop Tool and Overlay function gives you the opportunity to reverse back in time, right to the moment you snapped the image so that you can re-compose it.
Accessing Crop Overlays
You can locate the Crop Tool in Lightroom on the right panel underneath the histogram.
Once you’ve opened it, press the ‘O’ key to access and cycle through the different crop overlays.
Rule of Thirds:
If you’re reading this post, then I’m confident you’ve heard of the Rule of Thirds. For anyone unfamiliar though, it’s not a “rule” as such which you must adhere to. It’s just a useful guide which is commonly applied as it creates balance between the different elements in your frame making it more visually appealing for the eye.
By placing your subject ( or points of interest) on the intersecting lines of the grid, you ensure everything is proportional within your frame. It can also help with the straightening of horizons which makes a bigger difference than you might realise!
Diagonal:
This overlay is fantastic if you have diagonal lines in your frame from things like buildings, road lines, mountains, and trees. You can see how I used it effectively in the image below by using the natural lines of the rocky crags to create leading lines which draw the viewer’s attention deeper into the frame. I also like using this overlay when I frame an image by a 1x1 crop as it helps put my subject in the dead centre.
Triangle:
The Triangle overlay can be really useful if you have multiple points of interest in your image. It’s not one that I use commonly but it helped me balance the image below where I wanted to highlight the light hitting the tip of the mountain in the top right of the image, and also the beautiful blue layers of the mountains in the bottom left.
Pro Tip: Press Shift + O to rotate the grid and change the orientation.
Golden Ratio:
Often considered as the most pleasing composition as it’s found in the natural world, the Golden Ratio is all about balancing negative (blank) space in relation to the point of interest (subject) in your image.
Cropping your images and using the different overlays is a powerful tool in any photographer’s arsenal and can make a good image into a “great” one. There’s a few more overlays than just the ones I’ve listed above and each one is super useful to know as it will help train your eye whilst out in the field. However, these are only guides and shouldn’t be taken as gospel. After all, photography is an art and it’s up to you how you interpret them.
It should also go without saying that even though the Crop Tool can bail you out (it has for me many times), you should always be looking to nail your composition first time as best you can to develop your skills and become a better photographer.
Enjoy experimenting with them and have a great rest of your week!
