Overview
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An illustrated guide to improving the composition of your photos and making them more powerful.
Syllabus
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Introduction
- Welcome
- Using the exercise files
- Using the challenges
- Overview: What makes a successful image?
- Composing for simplicity
- Employing asymmetry
- Including eye lines
- Employing an interesting point of view
- Challenge: Which photo is more effective, and why?
- Solution
- How to see like your camera does
- Capturing the essence
- Matching orientation to composition
- Separation techniques
- Positioning key elements in the frame
- Working a shot over time
- Making room for type
- Establishing a composition workflow
- Challenge: Compose a landscape for an 8.5x11 magazine cover
- Solution
- Cropping for rotation, input and output orientations, and ratios
- Cropping for simplicity
- Cropping for orientation
- Cropping to enhance asymmetry
- Challenge: Crop these photos to improve composition
- Solution
- Adjusting brightness and contrast to enhance focal points and separation
- Dodging and burning to enhance separation
- Blurring to improve focus on a key image element
- Removing unwanted elements through retouching
- Creating your composite
- Converting to black-and-white
- The value of a photo critique
- The critiquing process
- Performing a basic composition critique
- Performing a complete composition critique
- Acting on a critique
- Challenge: Critique this photo
- Solution
- Next steps
