A really effective way to alter the composition in a photograph and change the apparent angle of view is to use the Content-Aware Scale feature in Photoshop.
This can be used to automatically detect which are the most important elements in an image and allows you to rescale (squash or stretch) the proportions of the image to change the aspect ratio and have the important elements remain unstretched. The best way to explain this is with the following step-by-step example, in which I tight- ened up the composition.
FIGURE 5.3 The Crop Overlay tool panel controls.
FIGURE 5.4 The Crop Overlay Aspect menu options.
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Compressing the elements together
This photograph has a lot of potential with engaging content. As the photographer, Richard Eyers, explains: “This image was captured on a Fuji X20 camera and pro- cessed in Lightroom. The scene was a children’s party in Nigeria, where the children had all run inside because of the rain, leaving behind a rather damp Mickey, with an abandoned pair of shoes and solitary balloon.”
When you look at the original image, the individual key elements are rather isolated and the main subject is some distance from the camera. The following steps show how I recomposed everything to fit within a classic square format crop. If this photograph had been taken from an angle more to the right and with a slightly longer lens, a fairly similar result could have been achieved through choosing a different viewpoint, and very little extra Photoshop work would have been required.
1 In this photograph, some things were visually interesting and others were distracting.
It was an image that had a lot of potential, making it worth manipulating the composi- tion just a little to improve the arrangement of the main elements.
Photograph: © Richard Eyers
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2 I wanted to step back a bit and analyze the elements in this scene and think how they could have been arranged better. The photograph was shot from posi- tion A using a wide-angle lens.
As a result of this, the key ele- ments, such as Mickey Mouse, the playhouse, the shoes, and the balloon all ended up looking a little lost. There was also quite a gap between the playhouse and Mickey. Now, imagine the photo- graph had been taken from posi- tion B, from an angle that was farther to the right and also with a slightly longer lens. A viewpoint like this would help align these elements so that they appeared closer together. By using the Content-Aware Scale feature in Photoshop, it was possible to simulate shooting from a different viewpoint.
A
B
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4 With the Background layer converted to an ordinary Layer 0, I selected Content-Aware Scale from the Edit menu. In the Options bar I selected the Alpha 1 channel from the Protect menu and checked the Protect Skin- tones option. I then dragged the right handle inward to squeeze the selected elements closer together.
3 I opened the photo in Photo- shop. To prepare the image for a Content-Aware Scale transform, I created a new alpha channel in the Channels panel, and with the channel mask visible and filled with black, I painted over the most important areas in white.
This defined the parts I wished to protect from being scaled.
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5 I clicked OK to accept the Content-Aware Scale transform. I then selected the Crop tool and applied a square crop to produce the finished version image shown here.
Photograph: © Richard Eyers
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Content-Aware Scale controls
The Content-Aware Scale feature allows you to recompose the aspect ratio of a pho- tograph to stretch it horizontally or vertically and have key elements within the frame adjust their position without becoming distorted. It is an effective tool for reshap- ing a photograph to suit different layouts, but there are limits to how much you can stretch a photograph and still preserve the integrity of its contents. The edge detec- tion that is employed is particularly good at recognizing what and what not to stretch.
Where this breaks down, there are a couple of things you can do. In the Content- Aware Scale toolbar, there is a Protect Skin tones option (circled in Figure 5.5).
When this is enabled, it improves the effectiveness of the edge detection so that skin tone subjects are protected more. In fact, it does more than recognize skin tones—it actually helps protect any recognizable shape from becoming distorted as you scale the image. The downside is that when enabled, the feature may deem too many ele- ments in need of protection, thereby inhibiting the ability to scale effectively.
A more accurate protection method is to create a new alpha channel and paint on the mask with black to define the areas you wish to scale and paint with white to define the areas you wish to protect (as was shown in Step 3 in the previous example).
You can then choose to load the alpha channel via the Protect menu in the Content- Aware Scale toolbar and then proceed to scale the image. Or, you can invert the mask to do the opposite and use the mask to define the areas you deliberately wish to see vanish as you rescale to make an image narrower.
The thing to watch out for as you apply a Content-Aware Scale adjustment is the jagged edges that appear where you squeeze parts of an image closer together, or obvious signs of stretching where the pixels are stretched farther apart. You do also have the option to use the Amount slider in the Toolbar. At 100% a full Content- Aware Scale is applied and at 0%, a full image transform is applied. This allows you to balance the amount of Content-Aware Scale that is used with a regular transform.
Another thing you can do is to apply Content-Aware Scale in stages. As soon as you see signs of jagged artifacts or stretching, ease off slightly and confirm the adjust- ment. Then try applying the feature a second time and you may find you can continue to stretch or squash the image further without any of the key elements becoming distorted.
The following example shows how the Content-Aware Scale feature was used to enlarge the proportions of an image to add more space around the central subject in the photograph.
FIGURE 5.5 The Content-Aware Scale toolbar options.
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Extending the canvas area
This photograph of a Cuban street sweeper was taken by Guy Pilkington. I especially liked the rich colors and the texture of the walls and doorway. My only criticism is that the composition could have benefited from having a bit more space on either side of the photograph. However, it is possible to use the Content-Aware Scale feature, as described below, to add more space on either side of the image without distorting the key areas of the image.
1 This shows the original version where the crop is quite tight, but there is the opportunity here to add more width to the picture.
Photograph: © Guy Pilkington
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2 In this step I opened the JPEG original via Camera Raw. Using the Basic panel, I increased Exposure slightly and adjusted the High- lights and Shadows sliders. I also fine-tuned the Blacks slider to adjust the black clipping point and added a small amount of Clarity.
3 I then opened the image in Photoshop, where I double-clicked the Background layer to convert it to a regular Photoshop layer. Next, I selected the Crop tool and used this to expand the canvas size of the image, adding more space to the photograph left and right.
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4 In the Channels panel I added a new Alpha 1 channel filled with black and painted the doorway area with white to roughly define it. After doing that, I clicked to select the RGB channel and turned off the visibility for the Alpha 1 channel.
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5 I then went to the Edit menu and selected Content-Aware Scale. This added a bound- ing box to the image that allowed me to stretch the image. Before doing this, I selected the Alpha 1 Channel from the Protect menu in the Toolbar. This ensured the doorway area remained unstretched as I dragged the side handles outward. Checking the Protect Skintones option also improved the quality of the scale adjustment.
Photograph: © Guy Pilkington
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