13235: A Simple Shift (Key) To Make Perfectly Square Images

Raw transcript:

this episode a demonstration a technical
demonstration because we’re often asked
to do perfectly square
uh head shot or images and there’s an
easy way to do that that I want to show
you uh and it’s universal you can do it
on a Mac or a PC i’ll get to the details
in just a second in this episode of the
VO Heroes podcast
so as an example on ACX
uh and on other casting sites you’re
often asked to put up a square perfectly
square same width as height
um picture of yourself and usually our
head shots are portrait they’re called
portrait for a reason because they look
like a portrait are taller than they are
wide usually it’s your head your
shoulders uh you know if it’s a 2T shot
go look that up i don’t I don’t want to
turn this into a not safe for work
episode but what we want to do is
somehow get a square shot out of that
and often what we find is as we look at
an image and we try to grab a piece of
that image we’re trying to make it
square and we kind of get it right i’ve
got a very simple thing that will make
it perfect every time so let’s take a
look at a head oh look at that guy uh
let’s take a look at a head shot and
what we want to do with this headsh shot
is we want to make a square version of
it so I’m going to be cropping out uh
everything except what is around my my
face so if I were to start in the upper
leftand corner and I were to highlight
and do this manually if I were to
highlight you see I can make it thinner
i can make it wider i’m trying to make
it squareish but I don’t really know if
it’s square doing it that way right uh
this is in the preview app on uh on a
Mac and it tells you just how many uh
pixels you are wide and tall in that
lower right hand corner but then you got
to really work with it to get it exactly
right and then is that what you want no
so here’s a different way of doing it
watch what happens if
before when I start to make my selection
I simply hold down the shift key now
look at this i’m like pulling it down
and over to the right but it’s perfectly
square and this works whether it’s
Windows or whether it’s Mac it doesn’t
really matter now I’ve got a perfectly
square
image this would work just fine what I
tend to do usually is start in the lower
right hand corner and work my way up
because that way I know I’m going to get
just what I want of my chin uh and then
I’m going to take it over to the left
and I get what I need of my head and now
if I finish with that well boom that’s
perfectly square and if I go to the crop
function and I crop it well that works
perfectly for the whole notion of a
profile picture save that as your square
version and you’re good to go and it’s
all through holding down the shift key
while you select what you want if you
hold the shift key down it locks it into
being a perfectly square what’s called
an aspect ratio so a perfectly square
aspect ratio same height as width
holding down the shift key on your
keyboard works every single time whether
it’s Mac or Windows doesn’t matter
whatever app you’re in doesn’t matter
it’s kind of a universal thing so just
know that that’s the case all you need
to do is know to hold the shift key down
you can make a a square image anytime
you like i hope that helps uh pass this
along to another actor who’s been
struggling trying to make their their
profile image for ACX or any other
casting site and also uh you know hit
the like button if you like what you
just saw um stay tuned to this uh
channel and hit the uh subscribe button
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you i’d really appreciate it if you do
that hope that helps i’m David H
lawrence the 17th i thank you so much
for watching and for listening and I
will see you in the next episode of the
VO Heroes podcast

(from YouTube)