PROF VAUGHN: Okay, this video tutorial is going to give you some art historical
context for what we're moving into with Photoshop, and also some basic design
principle theories.
So we're going to talk a little bit about composition, compositional strategies,
the history of collage, which is where we're sort of launching off into our digital
collages which we're gonna call composites, so they're very similar but
they have a couple differences.
Let's start off with composition.
When we're talking about composition, we're really trying to answer this
question: where do you place your elements?
We're always thinking about placing our elements within our composition to get at
the most dynamic interesting look possible.
There are some, sort of, standards that we have in design principle.
We have rules, we have compositional rules.
We have the rule of thirds and we have the golden rule.
We have framing and implied lines.
We have background colour and atmosphere, and something we call value.
So we're gonna look at these strategies so that you can use them in your own work.
The rule of thirds is a really classic important strategy, typically used in
photography, but we can use it also because we're using images in Photoshop
and we're starting to add and combine different elements.
So, in this rule, we're using an imaginary grid of 9 equal parts, the placement of
your elements at the intersections equals a more interesting placement for the viewer.
Um, so in this you can imagine you have a grid, so I've got 2 vertical lines and 2
horizontal lines drawn in black over these sample images.
Anywhere those lines sort of interact, where they cross over, so right here,
right here, right here, right here, that is the most dynamic placement for any
of your objects or subjects.
So you can see in this photograph, our dog is placed in a really good position.
This vase also, uh, picture, has sort of been placed in the same position.
Any asymmetrical placement is going to create something for your viewers eye
to do.
The viewers eye is going to enter the image plane and give it an opportunity
to travel around the composition, because this is more dynamic, more energetic, can
have a feeling of tension, even.
So these are kind of those power positions where you could imagine placing your
objects, elements, subjects, to create the most dynamic possible position.
Here's another sample, I've got the imaginary, kind of, grid drawn over this.
You can see we've got our subject placed over to the left here.
The eye is starting over here because this is in the foreground, and it is sort of
placed off to the side, so we start here.
We're sort of following the curve of the landscape, similar tonal value, following
it around, and we very quickly, our eye is going to go up to this bright spot, notice
this sort of castle is also at a power position at this intersection, and then
we're going to travel over to this imaginary, sort of like, dragon creature.
So, very dynamic position because the eye is travelling around the composition.
Okay, really important classic, kind of, painting, Edmund Dulac,
this is 'The Little Mermaid.'
Uh, here you can see we have a composition similarly, things are asymmetrical, they are
placed off to the right.
It is not centered, the subject is a little bit lower, the horizon line is up about that
middle third if you imagine the imaginary rule of third grid.
Here gives you a kind of clear picture of, kind of, how these elements are placed.
The imbalance is good here, so remember that, you actually want imbalance in
your composition.
If we compared them, I cropped the one on the right a little bit to make it sort of
centered, the comparison should give you a good idea.
Here, your eye kind of comes in and it travels up and it comes back down.
In this very centered image it sort of just breaks the image plane into 2 parts.
Very boring, very static.
We also have 2 equal parts between the top, because the horizon line is falling in
the middle, and this bottom section.
So it's very very static.
Our second rule is the golden ratio.
This is the Greek mathematical equation, it expresses itself as a spiral.
Many of the most famous pieces of art use this ratio to decide on the placement of
elements, and as a natural way to lead the eye across the image.
This is very popular in, um, architecture as well.
The golden ratio, again, it is a mathematical equation.
Once you know he equation you can use it to determine the placement and the scale
of certain objects.
Here's a very famous piece, you can see how that spiral is being expressed in
the shape of the wave.
Many, uh, very important and classic logos are based on the golden ratio.
So the ratio itself is 1 to 1.618, you can see how these play out in logos that
you're often very familiar with.
So these all are using a ratio of 1 to 1.168: Chevron, Pepsi, all of these logos
using that golden ratio.
The idea behind the golden ratio is that it is a mathematical proportion, so
the ratio itself is often found in nature, think of shells etcetera, things you find
at the beach.
Um, that idea is sort of, uh, being borrowed by designers to make logos that
feel naturally balanced.
Okay, let's talk about placement of where you can put your things, again, thinking
of the golden ratio, thinking of the rule of thirds, thinking about imbalance,
thinking about proportion, we're going to try and do the most dynamic composition.
if we think about what is the least interesting thing to do in comparison to
those strategies, it is always something like this.
It is putting your main element right smack in the center of your image,
of your composition.
The horizon line directly down the center axis, super boring, avoid this.
We can think about giving our sense of- giving our composition a sense of space.
When we're thinking of creating a sense of space, remember we're working 2
dimensionally, but we're creating an illusion of depth.
There are several ways to do this, we can use framing elements, put things in the
foreground, angles and implied lines, or atmospheric perspective and value.
Framing, super simple concept, you're thinking about what is on the edges of
your image, left and right, top and bottom.
You can think about it sort of like a vignette, but anytime you have elements
that are used as a frame, your viewer has the inclination to look through
thus these things that they're looking through become kind of a, uh,
highlighted aspect, if you will.
When we're thinking about framing, it's important to just note the following:
foreground, this word means anything sort of in the frontal view right here.
Our midground appears about here in an image, and our background of
course is the farthest away, so it should be back here.
2 dimensional plane, so again it's an illusion of space.
If we were to print this it's actually a flat object.
Here's another example, what could be placed in the foreground to create a
sense of space?
Particularly we know in our brain that this is a small flower, but when placed
bigger in the foreground and we let the background kind of go blurry, we know
that the landscape is actually very dominant, it's huge compared to the
actual scale of the flower, but by giving the flower some prominence in the
foreground, we have a greater sense of space.
Implied line, so implied lines are another design principle that are very important.
And implied line is a broken line that visually we begin to connect together
using our brain.
Your mind is always going to try to connect the dots, creating a
sense of direction.
These are hidden directionals, remember they're not actual lines they're implied
lines, so in this particular instance the implied line is happening with these
concrete spheres.
We start here in the foreground, it's the largest element grabbing our attention,
our mind just sort of visually steps back through the composition.