Re: Rule of Thirds?

Toke Eskildsen wrote:
> 
> Angela M. Cable wrote:
> 
> [Snip http://www.psppower.com/2002may/crop2.htm]
> 
> > He's mixing his terminology. What he's doing is the Golden
> > Section. Keep in mind that the Golden Section refers to a very
> > specific rectangle, 1:1.618.
> 
> That is correct, but that is not what he does. If we divide a line in
> two parts and compare the parts, we have that
> 
> - Mathematical center is 1:1
> - The Golden Section is 1:1.618...
> - The Rule of Thirds is 1:2
> 
> He doesn't give his measurements and it's been too long before I
> learned about geometrics, but a quick measure gives approximately

Right. And it looks like the link to download his "template" is dead. I
know a few people at psppower I'll see if somebody there can fix it. I'd
like to know what he's using, whether it's a preset shape or something
else.

> 
> - PSPPower: 1:2.57
> 
> That is so far off that I guess I've made an error somewhere.

I don't know. I really don't understand the math behind it. I can see
though that if your initial rectangle isn't pretty close to a Golden
Ratio, there's going to be problems dividing it down. I'm more of a
right-brainer that's pretty good at explaining right-brained stuff to
left-brained people :-) My background is actually in fine art rather
than anything technical. 

> 
> > So unless your image is a rectangle of that proportion the Golden
> > Section isn't going to work out exactly in any case.
> 
> He claims that it should - the rectangle won't be golden, but the
> golden areas can still be found.

Only up to a certain point. As your rectangle becomes more of a square
(a special case of a rectangle), the section becomes more skewed towards
the center until finally when the rectangle is a true square the section
is dead center. Try it yourself, it's easiest to do with vector shapes
and lines. With 35mm film or a digital camera, it's not really a
problem, but if you happen to be using, say 6x6 medium format film, the
Golden Section becomes useless and the Rule of Thirds would have to be
used instead.


> As I see it, the Golden Section can still be used in a non-golden
> rectangle: The Golden Mean in itself is about dividing lines. But in
> order to get a "true" Golden Section, the whole crop needs to be a
> Golden Rectangle.

You know, there's a piece of software that does a golden section thing,
I can't remember the name of it now to google it and find it again.


-- 
Angela M. Cable
PSP8 Private Beta Tester

PSP Tutorial Links:
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