Squidward…
One way to do this is to use the rectangular marquee tool in Fixed Size style.
With the tool selected, in the options bar, change the style setting to Fixed Size. Then, in the Width and Height fields to the right, enter your desired dimensions. The default unit of measure is pixels, so you’ll have to type in your dimension like "4 in" if you want to measure in inches.
After you’ve set your dimensions, when you click in your image, you’ll immediately get a fixed-size selection in your dimensions. Position your cursor within the selection, and you can click-drag it to your desired location.
Then, click Image > Crop to crop to the selection.
HTH,
Byron
Don’t use the Crop tool. Select the rectangular Marquee tool. In the Style box, select fixed size, and then enter the dimensions you want. Then, just click on the image and the box of the specified size will appear. If it doesn’t give you the portion of the image you want, you can change the resolution (Image->Size->Resize) to get the crop you want. When you’re happy with the selection, go to the Menu bar, click Image->Crop.
If you need more specific instructions, just ask.
Bert
Hi, Bert.
I think it’s neat how many times that happens — people jumping to help almost as soon as a query is posted.
It’s also comforting to me that our responses are so similar!
Byron
…. worked like a charm! thanks guys…
It’s also comforting to me that our responses are so similar!
Yeah, I guess we both can’t be wrong…<grin>
Bert
I don’t get it. Why the marquee tool? It works, but it has a disadvantage. With the crop tool I can select a 4×6 setting and then select whatever amount of the photo I want for the 4×6 by moving the handles. If I use the marquee tool set for 4×6 it will only crop a set 4×6 section of the photo and will not allow me to zoom in for the crop. It seems to me that the crop tool is more flexible. Enlighten me.
Crop tool is "more flexible".
However, takes some math, otherwise you will wind up with unexpected results.
1. Look at your initial ppi.
2. Make some crops, with 4×6 as parameters. Use different %’s of the orig image
3. Look at your resultant ppi for those. Hmmm, eh?
And yes, you can specify ppi also, but when you do that you are upsampling.
Mac
Some more tricks you can do with the Marquee tool:
When you use the Marquee tool with fixed size in inches, if you want to change the size of the selection, leave the Marquee tool selected, right click the blue banner at the top of the image and select Image Size. Then, with the Resampling box UNchecked, change the resolution…higher to make the box bigger, lower to make it smaller…and hit OK…then just click inside the selected area TWICE and the box will change size. You can repeat this to quickly zero in on exactly the size you want for the selected area.
Use the Marqee tool with fixed size in pixels when you want to make images for Emailing, Website or slide shows. I usually set the dimensions to 800 x 600 pixels and then just slide the box around on the image until I find a nice crop. It doesn’t always work…if you need a larger area, you’ll have to downsample, but it’s amazing how often you can get a really nice picture this way. On my website, I have an album called "Faces of AFrica" and I created most of the images this way. Images from my camera are 2560 x 1920, so an 800 x 600 crop is pretty small…just what I wanted to create a bunch of "faces."
Have a look:
<
http://community.webshots.com/user/bigelowrs>
Bert
Mark,
You have to be really careful with the Crop tool or it will resample the image when it crops. And it doesn’t tell you when this is going to happen. That’s why I prefer the Marquee. It NEVER resamples.
Bert
I should add that I’m allergic to resampling. I do it only as an absolute last resort. I’m probably a little obsessive about this. I just HATE to lose image data!
Bert
I only use the Crop tool if I’m doing a simple crop with all the boxes clear. i.e., no resampling.
I’m not sure I understand this entirely but I’m going to follow your advice anyway.
I have a photo that is 8.88 x 6.66 inches as it came out of the camera. Now I can use the marquee method for cropping and it does fine. But if I want to close in my crop more, make my subject larger, I’m going to have to use the crop tool. So i guess, I’m going to lose some data but it’s just a trade off here between keeping all the data and getting in closer on the crop.
Thanks for your input. This has been helpful.
If you just need onscreen use, then whatever looks okay IS okay.
The gotcha is when you wind up with too few pixels for good printing at whatever desired output size. And upsampling is a poor substitute for actual original pixels.
Mac
But if I want to close in my crop more, make my subject larger, I’m going to have to use the crop tool
Mark,
That’s what I was trying to explain in Post #8. You can change the area of the image in your fixed-size crop by changing the resolution, without resampling. To "zoom in" reduce the resolution. Of course you can only do this up to a point as Mac says, before the resolution is too low for a good quality print. You can go down to 200 ppi in most cases, or even a little less, and still get a pretty good print.
There is a limit though. If you keep zooming, eventually you run out of pixels as Mac said. EDIT: But upsampling with the Crop tool will usually NOT improve the image.
right click the blue banner at the top of the image and select Image Size.
Anybody able to do this on a Mac?
I’m going to play around with your suggestions and see how this works. I’ve never unchecked the resampling box when I’ve worked on photos in the past. I haven’t really printed a lot of my photos so my experience dealing with pixels, and resolution, resampling is very limited. I want to understand this better.
In fact, the difference between using the rectangular marquee tool and the crop tool is wether you do or don’t mind any upsampling, if I understand.
Well, I don’t mind upsampling as I don’t see any problem in "a poor substitute for actual original pixels". I noticed I can upsample my images without any visible problem. I print up too 50×75 cm (20×30 inches) at 254 ppi and nobody, including me, has ever seen any loss of quality.
I’ve printed for another member on the forum a 16×20 inch image from a 3 mpx camera; probably she is to polite to complain, but until now, as far as I know, she hasn’t noticed any problem too.
The bicubic upsampling in PE is a wonderful tool. If I, being a professional portrait photographer, can live with it and none of my customers ever noticed any loss of quality, I suppose this fear of upsampling is mainly theoretical.
I am an Associate of the BIPP and most of our members of the Dutch Region went the digital way. This way I know none of them objects to any upsampling. Moreover, if we were just only able to print at the camera resolution, we all would have stuck to film as only very few can justify buying a $20.000 back for their Hasselblads. The majority work with simple Canon, Nikon or Fuji DSLR cameras.
Leen
But Leen….you explained to us a few months ago your tightly controlled method for upsampling, performing it in successive10% increments. As Bert said earlier, the Crop tool is a ‘stealth resampler’, not warning you what it’s doing and performing the upsampling in one big jump. Wouldn’t it be better – albeit it slower – to do a resampling-free crop with the Marquee tool, then apply your 10% rule via Image Size? Doesn’t matter much at all for minor cropping of a pixel-rich image, but if major surgery is involved a more deliberate approach might be worthwhile.
Chuck
I use the crop tool without setting the resolution. Then I start to upsample in about 10% increments via "image size".
I just only set the fixed resolution when I know my the resolution of the cropped part will be smaller or only slightly larger than my original file.
This morning I had to crop a lot of images to be printed as 5×7" and set the box at 300 ppi and use the crop tool. I usually do that up to 8×12". Larger formats I mostly upsample to 254 ppi.
Leen
The Crop tool also upsamples if only the dimensions are set and not the ppi; that’s why it’s so dangerous IMHO – probably not for those with cameras in the 5,6 or more megapixel range, but for those with pixel-challenged cameras.
Chuck
Are you absolutely sure it upsamples when I don’t give in any ppi? I can’t see why as I give in just only relative sizes.
Leen
Leen
If you don’t specify ppi It doesn’t upsample. Of course it you pick a very small area you may have say 4" x 6" at 7 ppi. 😉
g.
Pfff, quite a relief. I’m glad you agree with me. I was afraid of having been working the wrong way for over a year.
Chuck, you really frightened me. 😉
But don’t worry, I am a forgiving person. 🙂
Leen
Well, gentlemen….I do apologize. I thought for sure I had experienced some resampling with just inch dimensions and no ppi specified, but when I tried to demonstrate it on an image, I found that wasn’t the case. So the Crop tool is safe so long as ppi isn’t specified – that’s good! Having said that, I still prefer the Rectangular marquee and its ability to set Normal, Relative, and Absolute values for its length and width.
Chuck
Thanks Chuck for the clarification. I prefer using the marquee tool also.
Pete
Hmmm,
I’m with you, Chuck. I though I had experienced resampling without setting ppi too…
Nope, same as in Photoshop.
PPI just goes down to match existing pixels spread over your xy specified area.
The only way ppi could stay the same (or even increase) would be to specify a new image with one dimension being the same as the original. However this would not be a resample.
Mac
The only way ppi could stay the same (or even increase) would be to specify a new image with one dimension being the same as the original.
Should have clarifed with "and use the entire area of the existing image for that dimension".
Mac
Bert, I started writing this reply to Leen and Grant, documenting my steps and showing once and for all that the Crop tool resampled with no ppi set. Unfortunately, when I tried it just to make sure, I was dead wrong; it crops to the pixel dimensions selected. Oh, well…..I’m glad it does!
But I still can’t find a way to just put a simple aspect ratio into the Crop tool; it always wants to make the dimensions into inches or pixels. In my case, I keep the picture dimensions on the screen in pixels, so the default for the Crop tool becomes pixels. An image that’s cropped to 8 pixels by 10 pixels doesn’t print well at all…
🙂
FWIW, I prefer using the crop tool because that is what I have become accustomed to using. It’s true that you can get burned if you don’t understand the resampling issue, but it doesn’t bother me. I think Photoshop Elements is a unique program because there really isn’t a right or a wrong answer. It’s neat that we can all be left to choose our own method of madness, isn’t it?
Jim,
wrote
"…there really isn’t a right or a wrong answer. It’s neat that we can all be left to choose our own method of madness…"
I wholeheartedly concur!
In a results-oriented situation, the desired outcome will most often be more easily facilitated by one way over the other — each has it’s merits. But it is necessary, IMO, to fully understand how the tools function in order to make the best decision in a given situation.
That, I believe, is why there is so much "harping" (sorry, Barbara) with regard to the marquee/crop method vs. the crop tool method — because of the severely under-documented effects of the tool’s options.
Knowing fully how each tool behaves enables an informed decision when addressing a task.
Byron
Byron, you are a natural diplomat! Perhaps you could go the Middle East and arrange a lasting peace accord….
🙂
p.s. your comments are right on the money….
One of the things you guys make me aware of is that I’m in the company of a lot of engineers and I know why I’m not one. Sometimes I think my brain is going to burst into a zillion pixels trying to grasp all this.
Maybe I should follow Jim’s advice and ‘not let it bother me’. If I get a photo print I’m having problems with I’ll give you guys a holler.
‘Sometimes I think my brain is going to burst into a zillion pixels trying to grasp all this’
Mark – I believe that would constitute ‘downsampling’…..but we’ll have to get some additional opinions!
🙂
I ran a few more tests on the Crop tool…I must admit I was still confused about its behavior.
If you set a fixed size in inches and then crop an image, the resolution is adjusted to give you exactly that size for the image area selected for the crop. No resampling is done.
However, if you set a fixed size in pixels and then crop an image, the resolution is not changed, but the image is resampled.
If the pixel dimensions of the selected area are smaller than the entered pixel dimensions, the image is upsampled. If larger, the image is downsampled. There is NO indication that this is happening.
What I like about the Marquee tool is that it separates the cropping function from the resolution adjustment and resampling functions. I feel it gives me more control over the process because I make the decision to change the resolution or resample, not the program.
But that’s just my preference.
Bert
To continue the previous post, because I forgot some things:
There’s more to the difference between Marquee and Crop tool functionality. Let’s say you want to extract an area of exactly 800 x 600 pixels from an image. I do this all the time for Website images. How do you do that with the Crop tool? If you set the dimensions to 800 x 600 pixels and crop, you will get an 800 x 600 image, but it will be resampled unless you happen to pick a selection area that is exactly 800 x 600 pixels in the original image…not very likely.
With the Marquee tool, you set the pixel dimensions and click on the image. Immediately, a selection box appears of exactly that size in pixels. Now, you can decide if you want to resample or change the pixel dimensions to get exactly what you want in the crop area.
If you want a fixed size in inches, you set the dimensions and click on the image. Immediately, a selection box appears of exactly that size based on the current resolution. Now you can decide if you want to change the resolution and/or resample to get exactly what you want in the crop area.
I guess it comes down to this: The Crop tool will give you the result faster by making resolution and resampling decisions for you. The Marquee tool lets you make those decisions, but it takes a few more steps, and you have more flexibility to combine resolution and resampling to achieve your result. The Crop tool will use one or the other, depending on whether you are sizing your result in inches or pixels.
Bert
ALERT: For those of ou on mail readers, I edited the previous post extensively, so the one you have may not be the same as above.
Bert
