Crop and composition APPle SkillS
macformat.com @macformat DECEMBER 2019 | MACFORMAT | 39How to Recompose the contents of a shot >
How to Remove unwanted objects >
1
Lack of symmetry
Sometimes objects in a shot are not
quite in the right place. In this example,
there’s a wider gap between the bike on
the left, creating an imbalance in the
composition. Fortunately, we can move
the bike to the right to create symmetry.2
Make a selection
Grab the Content-Aware Move tool.
Draw roughly around the object that
you want to move. Leave lots of space
around its edge. A selection marquee
will appear. Drag inside the selection
marquee to reposition the object.3
Tidy up
The tool repositions the object
and replaces its original details with
appropriate pixels of sky, sea and beach.
If you see any seams or errors in the
edited areas, you can fix these with a
quick spray of the Spot Healing Brush.1
Unwanted objects
Sometimes it’s difficult to photograph
a subject without including ugly street
furniture, such as the overhead cable in
this shot. The horse on the right is also
facing the wrong way, so we’ll need to
remove its rear end!2
Choose the right tool
Because the cable overlaps clear
blue sky, we can remove it with ease.
Spray the Spot Heating Brush over the
cable. The tool automatically samples
adjacent blue sky pixels and places
them over the unwanted cable.3
Cloning around
To remove more complex objects,
choose the Clone Stamp tool. å-click to
sample an adjacent area, such as a tree.
Place the brush tip over the unwanted
object and click to spray the sampled
pixels over the unwanted object.Obey the Rule of Thirds
When cropping a shot, it’s a good idea to turn on the Rule of Thirds Grid Overlay
in the Options bar. This grid helps you to make a more balanced and aesthetically
pleasing cropped image. In steps one to three, we used the Rule of Thirds grid to
place the sky in the top row, the sea in the middle row and the beach in the lower
row. We positioned the left-hand intersecting vertical and horizontal line over
the girl, as the eye is naturally drawn to these parts of a picture according to
the classical rules of composition.Using an overlay grid to help with composition