The only way I can see for you to have all your pictures oriented in the same direction would be for you to take a vertical crop from your landscape photographs and tell Elements the dimensions that you want. The only problem with this is that you would be greatly diminishing the quality of those pictures. You cannot realistically change the orientation of a photograph and keep all of the picture. Scanning your pictures will enable you to size of them the way you want them, but to keep the full picture you will have to retain the orientation whether it be landscape or portrait. If you have a lot of pictures to print you might consider taking them to a commercial photo finisher. It is actually cheaper to do them that way. I have had very good results with three different labs when I have taken the time to do all of the color correcting, etc..
Nancy,
The canvas is like the frame in your workplace that your picture is on. You can increase the size of it, like if you’d want to add a frame or something.
The best way to learn it is to try it out. Choose Resize Canvas, and add a few inches top and bottom and you’ll see the difference.
It won’t change your picture a bit.
Hope that helps,
Lorace
Nancy,
To add to Lorace’s comments and visualize in a different way…imagine you set up a large stretched canvas that is 3′ by 3′ and then paint your picture on it. You chose not to paint all the way to the edges of the canvas however, in fact you only laid paint down in an area that is 2′ by 2′. Blank canvas shows around your painting. Your image size is 2′ by 2′ and your canvas size is 3′ by 3′. An image can never be smaller than the canvas.
When you scan a photo and then resize it in PSE for enlarging or reducing the printed size, the canvas size automatically changes to match the image size. You can manually add extra canvas to an image you are working on in PSE if desired. One might want to do this to add a colorful border or digital frame around an image which will print with the picture.
If your pictures are already 4 x 6, it is simply a matter of opening PSE, clicking on File, choosing Import and selecting Twain (which gives access to my scanner). My scanner software opens and I choose the settings I desire, such as; Source=color photo, destination=photo printer, resolution=300ppi, scale=100% and various controls which differ by manufacturer for adjusting color and such. After scanning is complete and you click Close, the image is on your workarea in PSE. Create a new folder on your computer in which to immediately put your fresh scans. In PSE, go to File, Save As and change the file type to .psd (the native format of PSE). Name the file and OK it. Scan and save all your images in this manner.
Nancy
"An image can never be smaller than the canvas."
Nancy, I think you have that backwards. A canvas can never be smaller than an image, but an image CAN be smaller than the canvas.
Jim,
Thanks for correcting me, it is true as you say, I had it backwards.
