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If you want to see a rule-of-thirds composition grid even when you’re not cropping your image, there’s a simple Photoshop trick.

Andrew James

Visible thirds

Q  Does Photoshop have a rule-ofthirds grid I can keep visible all the time?

Caroline Hart

A  Most editing software, including Lightroom, Camera Raw and Photoshop, will allow you to have a rule-of-thirds grid visible on the image when you are using the Crop Tool as a compositional aid. In Lightroom you can change this to a different overlay (such as the golden spiral) really easily by pressing the letter O while using the Crop Tool; but like you Caroline, I find the rule-of-thirds grid most helpful.

If you are shooting raw and using Camera Raw to edit, you’ll know the Crop and Rotate Tool has a rule-of-thirds grid visible when you use it, and that’s the same in Photoshop itself when you select the Crop Tool.

However, if you want to have the rule-ofthirds grid visible on an image even when the Crop Tool isn’t selected, you need to set it up via Preferences and the Guides, Grid & Slices options.

Here’s how to do it:

1 In Photoshop, press Cmd+K (in macOS) or Ctrl+K (in Windows) to open Preferences.

2 Click on Guides, Grid & Slices. 3 Where it says Grid in the dialog box, change the settings as follows.

Colour: Light Gray (you can choose any colour you want, but I like this) Gridline Every: 100 Percent Subdivisions: 3

4 Click OK.

Once you’ve done this, a simple grid that divides the image into thirds both horizontally and vertically can be switched on and off at will. To turn it on, press Cmd+’ (apostrophe) in macOS or Ctrl+’ in Windows. You can use the same keyboard shortcut to switch it off, too. Now you’ve got full control over your composition!