1 post tagged “horizon line”
My tripod is cheeeeeap. Anyone who wants to buy me a really really expensive one with all the bells and whistles, please feel free. lol.
One thing to remember when framing a photo in your camera viewfinder is that your camera takes a photo which is a rectangle. One thing that is worth thinking about is whether your shot is better as a long rectangle or a tall one.
Take this shot, for example: it's a thin tall subject, so it's probably better as a tall rectangle. Taking it as a tall rectangle also allowed me to remove some other very colorful objects which were in the background if I took it as a long rectangle, and which I felt took attention away from the green ball.
There's an issue, though. My cheapie tripod head won't tilt quite all the way over. This means that the horizon line of the fence is at an angle. Usually I try to remember to adjust the legs of the tripod to compensate, but I forgot this time.
Remembering horizon lines is especially important when you are taking shots of water, such as the ocean. While it is possible that this fence is actually at a slant, the ocean never runs at an angle, and your mind knows that. It usually makes a shot a bit less effective.
The solution? I used my editing program to tilt the picture so the fence is straight. Paint Shop Pro XI has a great straighten tool which is very handy for this.
The background is that awful magenta color because I usually put a color as my background which matches nothing in the picture, so that I can clearly see the edges of my picture when cropping. It's also really useful for some other editing as well, so I just make it habit.
Then I crop the picture. I want to keep the base of the pillar the ball is standing on, so I end up with a bit of the magenta background. I use the clone tool to fill this in, and Voila! A little sharpening and clarifying later, and I have the picture I want.
