Cropping Photos

In addition to resizing photos, you may also need to remove areas of a photo. Cropping accomplishes this task. I began with a photo of 2 people riding in a carriage, and decided to use it at Hemenway State University's Web site. At this point the photo does not look like a campus photo, however if I remove the hanging laundry and carriage reins, I can create a close up shot of 2 happy people who are attending the college.

I began by reducing the image by half using the Image menu > Image size. The image began as a 540 by 320 image. Now it is 270 by 160.

When I reduced the image by 50% again, I find the faces become too small. Another way to make the image smaller is to remove portions of the image so that the faces remain, and the laundry and horse reins are removed. Time to crop...

I select the crop tool and click and drag to define the area I want to keep in the picture.

Here is what the screen looks like. Notice that the area which will be removed is grayed out. As I view my crop, I decide that I have gotten a little close to the top of their heads.

I can easily move the cropping area by placing the cursor over the image and then dragging the crop area to a new portion of the screen.

Once I have the crop area where I want it I select enter, or choose a new tool to complete the crop. Here is the photo after the crop.

Sometimes the image needs just a little more cropping and the crop tool can be difficult to maneuver to just the size you need. Here is a cheat which works as a "crop substitute". My current image is 143 pixels by 88 pixels. If my finished image must be 135 by 80, I analyze the image and decide to take a little off the top and bottom and remove pixels from the right side of the image where the girls hand appears.

The crop trick is to use the Image menu > Canvas size command. This dialog box appears.

I can enter new values of 135 and 80 and then determine where the cropping will occur. Play special attention to the gray box near the bottom of the window. This "Anchor" icon allows you to designate where your image will remain. If my gray box is in the middle along the vertical axis then the pixels will be removed evenly from the top and bottom of the image. Since the gray box is to the left then the extra pixels will be removed from the right side of the photo.

Here is my earlier photo, and then the photo after the crop trick has been applied.