Image Cropping with Shutterstock Editor

Everyone involved in creating web content understands the importance of visual imagery. Images, like any other form of information, help break up the monotony of text and highlight specific sections.

Content creators on stock platforms encounter a huge number of images daily, but built-in programs aren’t always the best solution for making minor adjustments.

A quick and simple way to edit and prepare images for social media, blogs, and email newsletters is essential. Shutterstock Editor steps in as a simple yet powerful tool, allowing creators to edit images before downloading them.

Read today’s article to discover how to apply basic design principles and use them in Shutterstock Editor, then try this tool yourself!

Overview of Shutterstock Editor

Rule of Thirds

The rule of thirds is a basic guideline for creating visual compositions. It states that if you overlay a 3×3 grid on an image, important elements should align with the grid lines, rather than sit between them.

Simply put, design elements look better if slightly shifted to the side rather than placed directly in the center.

For instance, Annette Shaff’s photo has all the ingredients for a great Instagram post (vintage car, vintage filter, cute dog). Using the Post crop template, you can easily tweak the settings to better fit Instagram.

Following the rule of thirds, imagine a 3×3 grid and simply shift the image to align the key element with it.

Now, the dog is slightly off-center, creating a more balanced composition.

Headroom and Lead Room

Headroom and lead room are key concepts for great photography. Headroom is the space between the top of the image and the main subject. This main subject should be about ⅓ below the top edge.

Lead room is the amount of horizontal space left between the edge of the image and the front of a stationary or moving object in the frame.

For example, if a bear is looking to the left, it should have more space on the left side than on the right.

Adjusting headroom and lead room is simple with cropping – just make the right vertical and horizontal cuts.

In this photo by David Rasmus, two bears are centered in the frame. Since the bears are facing left, any adjustments should leave more space on the left.

Modify the lead room by choosing the desired crop and shifting the image to ensure enough free space in the direction the subject faces. By using the Facebook image template and moving the image to the right, these bears have ample lead room.

Headroom can be adjusted with the slider below the photo – use it to zoom in or out, finding the ideal amount of headroom.

Rule of Three

Similar to the rule of thirds, the rule of three suggests that identical objects grouped in threes (or any odd number) are visually more appealing than even-numbered groups. Though even-numbered groups can be balanced, odd-numbered groups create an asymmetry that’s more attractive to the eye.

By the way, a symmetrical arrangement of objects in an image can sometimes evoke unease, so it might be better to always use an odd number of objects to achieve balance and harmony in the composition.

Creating balance is easy using the rule of three by cropping out extra parts, leaving only an odd number of objects.

This works particularly well with simple images like isolated objects, for example, in food photography or in this photo by Thaiview.

If you want to crop an image without using templates for social media, you can simply enter the desired dimensions.

By pressing the ‘Set Custom Size’ button, you’ll see the original image size and can now enter your own parameters or even save custom dimensions for future use.

The original size of this image is 3872 pixels by 1922 pixels. If you change the parameters to 3200×1922, the fourth oil rig will be cropped, making the overall composition align with the rule of three.

Space

In design, space is the distance between objects and around them, a significant compositional element in photography that deserves your attention. Positive space is the area occupied by objects in the shot, while negative space is the empty area with no design elements.

When used correctly, negative space emphasizes positive space, guiding the eye to the important elements in the design.

The Shutterstock Editor cropping tools allow you to manage positive and negative space by subtracting from the image as a whole. Depending on the image chosen for editing, you can remove design elements to create a simple image with ample negative space, or reduce negative space to draw more focus to the positive design elements.

This image by Vitalii Bashkatov is an excellent candidate for manipulation not only because it represents Pantone’s Colors of the Year but also because it contains enough negative space, contrasting with vivid examples of positive space.

Here, the image is cropped to a template for Facebook publication and enlarged to remove the mountains in the background. By reducing positive space, we increase negative space, creating a sense of boundlessness.

With a Pinterest template, more negative space can be cropped, grouping key elements into a single image featuring both the paraglider and the misty mountains beneath.

Cropping is a powerful tool for managing framing, composition, balance, and space in an image with just a few clicks and drags. Small changes can yield significant results, not only in your images but also in the time and effort needed to prepare them for use.

Social media users, content creators, journalists, and bloggers can greatly simplify this process with the help of Shutterstock Editor, freeing up time to create original content.

Original article: shutterstock.com/blog/compose-beautiful-images-shutterstock-editor

This article is also available for reading in the following categories: About Microstocks, Shutterstock