cropping pictures: Hey there,,, I have wanting to crop pictures to fit certain sizes and not sure I am going about it right. I have a photo editing program that goes by pixels, I found...

dabbleshots Loc: Richmond,va.

Hey there,,, I have wanting to crop pictures to fit certain sizes and not sure I am going about it right. I have a photo editing program that goes by pixels, I found a chart that tells what size the pic will be by the number of pixels. upon changing my photos to the size in pixels,,, when I check the properties after saving ,, it shows the number of pixels have changed,,, does that mean it has changed the size or is it just reading it by the size of the pic in the folder... I just want to make sure when I send pics off to get them to be like 12 x 36 the pic I cropped is right for the photo size I desire!

amehta Loc: Boston

When you say "changing my photos to the size in pixels," what exactly are you doing? If you are keeping the aspect ratio of the original (3:2, 4:3, etc), you won't get a 12x36 pic. You have to make sure you are actually setting both the height and width yourself. If the size when you check the edited picture is different than the original size and the new size, that's definitely the size of the image and not what you want.

What software are you using? Someone may be able to tell you exactly what it is doing.

f8lee Loc: New Mexico

Dabbleshots, there are two things involved here - the number of pixels and also the resolution (or pixels per inch) required.

For printing purposes, resolution is typically 300 dpi (dots per inch) or sometimes 360, depending on the printer. So if what you mean is you want a print that is 12x36 inches (a panoramic shot) it will need to be 3600 pixels tall by 10,800 pixels wide.

Now unless you're using a very exotic large format digital camera, the width of your image is less than 10,800. but that's where image editing programs come in - they can enlarge a smaller-than-required image to the needed size. As @Amehta points out, the proportions of this image are not any kind of standard, so you will need to use no constraint when cropping the final image.

Of course, knowing what program you are using would probably be helpful.

CHOLLY Loc: THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE!

Also, cropping USUALLY means editing an image to remove unwanted portions of the original, whereas reducing the pixel count is simply resizing the original image in its entirety.

Hope that helps a little...

Searcher Loc: Kent, England

Aspect ratio and print resolution are 2 different issues.
If your original photo has an aspect ration of 3:2 which most cameras output, it will need cropping to 3:1 to enable a 36x12 print.

The first image below is how it comes out of camera and the second image shows the crop with an aspect ratio of 3:1

Original at 3:2
Original at 3:2...

Cropped to 3:1
Cropped to 3:1...

Searcher Loc: Kent, England

The next problem to be aware of (as mentioned previously) is to have enough pixels in the photo to print a decent picture.
The original photo was 3000 x 2000 pixels (small by todays standards-but the numbers are easy to understand. The crop is 3000 x 1000 pixels.
Divide the long edge by 36 and the short edge by 12 gives only 83 pixels per inch in both directions. As this photo is comprised of a great deal of detail, 83ppi is not likely to be good enough for a large print viewed at 5 or 6 feet.

There are ways round this, one way is to resize the whole image in a processing program which adds pixels. Attached is an example - see the distortion?

Resized with added pixels

Searcher Loc: Kent, England

Another way is to crop first to the correct aspect ratio, then resize to add the pixels.

There is no point in me showing this because a screen image just is not going to show the problems.

There are specialist programmes for this kind of enlargement and also Photoshop, Elements and most of the Corel Programs can do it.

Aim at something like 200 ppi to get a fairly good large print. There are Hoggers who do this all the time with great results.

Some of those Hoggers hang around in the PP section:

Use this link to come in and have a look round: http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/s-116-1.html
Use this link to go straight to the Tutorials and Tips index page: http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-156310-1.html
Use this link to go straight to the Free Software Index: http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-168252-1.html
To subscribe to the Post-Processing Digital Images section, click this link http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/
Click on "All Sections" and scroll to the second-to-last item: Post-Processing Digital Images and click to subscribe in the appropriate box.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Usually there is a drop down list that allows pix, mm, inches for cropping photos. dabbleshots, you should be bold and inform us of what edit program you are using????

If you crop is a little off from, say 8x10, perhaps 8.25 to get what you want. You can go to Image>Resize and modify the size to be 8x10 (or multiple of that size usually show at top of the resize list.) A small tweak in the "aspect ratio" will rarely be noticed.

JD. Loc: Winston Salem NC

croping is manily to element unwanted objects in a shot. You need to Resize your photos not crop. Resize will reduce the size of pixels. (pixels is the picture) Like my canon will shot 3240x4120 I resize them to 800 they upload and print well.

Searcher Loc: Kent, England

JD. wrote:

croping is manily to element unwanted objects in a shot. You need to Resize your photos not crop. Resize will reduce the size of pixels. (pixels is the picture) Like my canon will shot 3240x4120 I resize them to 800 they upload and print well.

JD. I would love to see one of your images resized to so that a print of 12" x 36", (as mentioned by the OP), can be made without cropping. The image would be very distorted.

jerryg Loc: NE Pa

dabbleshots wrote:

Hey there,,, I have wanting to crop pictures to fi... (show quote)

You need to use a program which will allow you to see the pic you want to crop. Picasa from Google is free and has a "cropping" icon that works great. Has plenty of other pp icons and is very easy to use. I have all the very pricey pp software programs and I think I use Picasa alone more than any of the others. I use the expensive programs for doing much finer work bu in general Picasa is really a good program.

CHOLLY Loc: THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE!

I've noticed that a LOT of people post replies without reading the replies that have already been posted.... :(

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

As mentioned about Picasa, the crop tool for printing at various "shapes" is very handy and you can even set up your own special choices, such as 8x8.

As for "re-size," to print (removing pixels, lowering resolution), that is something you do NOT want to do, especially if making a poster-size print.

busted_shutter

Linda From Maine wrote:

As mentioned about Picasa, the crop tool for printing at various "shapes" is very handy and you can even set up your own special choices, such as 8x8.

As for "re-size," to print (removing pixels, lowering resolution), that is something you do NOT want to do, especially if making a poster-size print.

Is this true for all resizing...or is there a way to resize w/o losing pixels? Can you increase or decrease at all w/o a loss?

amehta Loc: Boston

busted_shutter wrote:

Is this true for all resizing...or is there a way to resize w/o losing pixels? Can you increase or decrease at all w/o a loss?

Any resizing requires some calculation based on the existing pixels, so it is not "perfect". To reduce the size by half (4000x3000 -> 2000x1500), you lose some detail. In simple terms, every four pixels are averaged to give values for one new pixel. To double the size (4000x3000 -> 8000x6000), the software has to estimate values for the new pixels, but it cannot be the same as having an 8000x6000 pixel sensor.