Sizing by cropping.

Cropping can be used to size your image and enable you to achieve the same size on more than one photograph. Should you want prints to fit a particular frame size or to use in a set of ready-made blank greetings cards this method can be very useful.

Crop tool options bar

  1. Select the cropping tool and the Options Bar will appear as above. The first 3 boxes should be empty. [Press CLEAR if there are numbers there]. For PSE4, 5, 6, 7, & 8 click on the chevron for the Aspect Ratio box and select No restriction.
  2. Ensure that Snap to Grid or Edges is ticked.
  3. Also Maximize your image by clicking on the centre of the 3 icons at the top right of the image window [for Windows] - [top left for Mac]maximise
  4. Now for our Projected Digital Images we need to set our images to be within 1400 x 1050 pixels.
  5. These dimensions can now be typed into the Width and Height boxes. It is important to type 1400px where px = pixels. If you omit this the computer assumes you mean cms or inches. This will make the computer produce an enormous photo and take a very long time to compute i.e. several hours! So take care to put the dimensions after the numbers.
  6. The Resolution can be ignored when making PDI’s. So leave it blank.  This is not the case when sizing for prints.
  7. Crop the image as normal and tick when you are satisfied.
  8. Using the crop tool drag it across your image selecting the area you wish to crop. At the corners of the frame you will see handles, which you can use to pull the frame out using the double-headed arrow that appears. If you put the cursor slightly out from the corner the arrow will change to a rocker, which you can use to rotate the frame, thus it will change the frames content. Yet another way to move the crop is to place the cursor inside the cropped frame and drag the whole frame in any direction. When you are satisfied with your chosen crop, click the tick.
  9. If you now check the image size using Image > Resize > Image Size form the top menu bar. You will see that whatever area you cropped the dimensions will be 1400px x 1050px. This step is only to check and is not required.
  10. Choose the next image. [Leave the measurements in the options bar].
  11. Drag the crop tool of this image. Click the tick. The computer will immediately make this image exactly the same size as the previous one using the measurements set in the option box.
  12. This method works for Portrait format images as well. Ensure that you zoom to allow plenty of room around your maximised image.
  13. Then drag the Crop Tool across until you meet the side.  Here the Crop Tool will stop. Release the Mouse left key. Then click on one of the corner handles [small squares].  Now you can drag the crop frame beyond the image into the workspace. Keep dragging until the frame reaches the bottom edge.
  14. Move the crop frame by clicking inside it and moving it up and down to centre the image. Click the tick.
  15. You will probably have white areas now. If you want black or any other colour then make the Background colour black.  Then the crop will have black as the extra canvas.
  16. Below is a portrait format image showing the pixel dimensions.
  17. sizing
  18. Here is the Crop as far as is allowed.
    crop
  19. Here we have extended the crop onto the Workspace i.e. beyond the image area.
  20. Here we have used the Move tool to slide the crop frame [dotted] to centre the image.
  21. Finally we have clicked the Tick and the result with black border is shown together with the tool box. The black and white squares reversed from the default.

Updated 26 October, 2010