CEI - Photo Composition and Editing Techniques (Lesson)
Photo Composition Techniques Lesson
The quality of the images you use on your website affects the overall professional look of your website. Applying some simple photo composition techniques will capture your subject and create the best pictures for your website.
Resolution
Images that come from digital devices such as a camera or mobile phone are made up of pixels. A pixel, short for picture element, consists of small squares of colors. If you have ever seen an enlarged picture that has lost its clarity, you are seeing pixels due to insufficient image resolution. Image resolution is the number of pixels in the image. Pixels per inch, PPI, refers to how many pixels are displayed per inch of an image. You see images either in high or low resolution. High image resolution means that there are more pixels per inch (PPI), resulting in a high-quality, crisp image. Images with lower resolutions have fewer pixels; if those few pixels are too large the image will appear low quality or grainy.
Image resolution is expressed as a horizontal x vertical measurement. For example, an image resolution of 7000 x 5000 measures 7000 pixels in width and 5000 pixels in height. Multiplying the horizontal and vertical measurements together gives us a total of 35,000,000 pixels.
A digital camera has an image sensor that is made up of millions of pixels. They are referenced in terms of megapixels. This is defined as a unit of measure equal to one million pixels. Let’s take the example image resolution 7000 x 5000 which equals 35,000,000 pixels and convert it to megapixels. Take the total amount of pixels and divide it by 1,000,0000 (35,000,000/1,000,000) to get a total of 35 megapixels. As a result, the total megapixels are 35MP. The number of megapixels on an image sensor of a camera directly impacts the potential resolution of the photos a camera captures.
The Red-Eye Effect
The red-eye effect can happen when taking pictures. How? The red-eye effect occurs when your camera flashes in a poorly lit environment such as a poorly lit room or outside when it is dark. When in the dark, our pupils widen to let in as much light as possible. When there is a flash, the light travels through our dilated pupils, bounces off the back of our eyes, and then the light is sent back the way it came. This results in the red-eye effect.
To avoid the red-eye effect:
- Use the anti-red reduction function on your camera.
- Move the flash and lens further apart.
- Don’t look directly at the camera lens.
- Allow more light into the room.
- Look at something bright.
Lighting
Lighting is one of the most important elements of a photograph. Without it, photographs would not exist. When it comes to lighting, the direction of the light is important. The direction of the light will affect the subject being captured. The direction of lighting can be set simply by either changing your subject's position relative to the light or by moving the light source. The three main directions of light used in photography are front lighting, backlighting, and side lighting.
Front lighting
Front lighting refers to light that shines from behind the camera and comes directly in front of the subject illuminating it. This form of lighting produces few or no shadows; it is normally out of sight from the camera’s point of view. Front lighting is the most popular use of lighting; however, it is criticized for making subjects appear flat.
Side Lighting
Side lighting creates the strongest sense that a subject has three dimensions. Side lighting refers to light that illuminates from the right or left of the subject. This form of lighting falls on a subject at ninety degrees to the camera. Unlike front lighting, this form of lighting creates a defined shadow that falls to one side of the subject. It can result in shadows being elongated making the subject look dramatic. It also brings out the texture of a subject.
Backlighting
Backlighting involves the source of light being set behind the subject shining toward the camera. If your subject obscures the light source, the result is a silhouette. This form of lighting creates highlights on your subject and a sense of depth.
Layers
Layering can add depth and dimension to a picture that would otherwise look flat. The goal of layering is to give an image a 3D effect in 2D. Do not get this concept mixed up with using special software to layer images. We are talking about using actual visual elements in different layers while composing a scene to capture a picture. To accomplish the layering technique, add layers into three parts: foreground, middle ground, and background. When you add layers, you can include shapes and textures, foregrounds and backgrounds, and secondary elements in images. Also, shooting in black and white or manipulating the light in shadows are ways to add layers without adding elements to a scene.
Image Editing Techniques
Anti-aliasing
Jagged lines on images and graphics reduce the professionalism of your website. Jagged edges or stair-stepped lines are when aliasing manifests. This tends to happen when making a selection with a curved line. To make the jagged edges smooth, the anti-aliasing editing technique is applied. This is a raster-editing feature that softens the hard edges of a selection by adjusting the color of the pixels along the outside edge. The anti-aliasing editing technique applies discrete pixel coloring between the edges of an object and its background, causing the jagged edges to blur and blend together. As the image is zoomed out, you are not able to notice the slight discoloration created by anti-aliasing.
Cropping
Cropping in photo composition means including all of the elements you want in the picture and excluding anything you don’t want. This allows your subject to occupy more space. You are improving the overall image by removing unwanted parts from it.
IMAGES CREATED BY GAVS