Spitting an image in two along a vertical axis

GB
Posted By
Guy Burns
Jul 30, 2006
Views
1725
Replies
6
Status
Closed
I want to be able to split an image exactly in two along a vertical axis so I end up with a right half and a left half. (I need to be able to do this for images that cross page boundaries in InDesign and won’t impose correctly.)

I can do this manually by generating a selection rectangle of the exact size and then attempting to move it into exactly the right place, vertically and horizontally, hard up against the image boundary; but I was hoping that Photoshop had a method of doing the same thing semi-automatically – a CROP IN HALF function that generates two files from the original.

Any suggestions?
Related Tags
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Ed_Hannigan
Jul 30, 2006
Use Canvas Size and percentages. Make sure you save versions, not your original. After resizing the Canvas Select All>Crop. If you have Shapes you may need to merge them with an empty layer (or flatten).

This can be done with an action. Used to do the same thing on my old job.
BB
by_Buko
Jul 30, 2006
You can do this much easier in ID.

Place the image across the 2 pages.

Now copy the image and paste in place. you have one image on top of the other.

select top image and crop to one page select the other image and crop to the other page.
P
PShock
Jul 30, 2006
If you slowly drag a guide towards the middle, it will snap into the exact center of the image. Then just crop to the guide.

-phil
BB
by_Buko
Jul 30, 2006
If you use the same image in ID you know you have it perfectly lined up.
GB
Guy Burns
Jul 31, 2006
Thanks Ed, Buko and Phil. Both methods are effective, but the InDesign method is certainly the easiest, though less elegant and carries a small size overhead.

While playing around with the InDesign method I came across what may be a small bug. I was experimenting to see how much file-size overhead the extra image caused and this is what I found (Saving between each change):

A blank 3 page document was 132 kB in size. It jumped to 280 KB when I PLACED a small image, and then to 296 kB when I copied and PASTED IN PLACE.
When I removed the two images the file size jumped further to 308 KB, even though the document was blank.

I placed the two images back again and the file size became 396 kB. When I removed them the file size stayed at 396 kB unless I SAVED AS which caused the file size to revert to 132 kB. For some reason, InDesign seems to remember that images were in the document, even after they have been removed.

Does anyone know why this happens? Looks like I’ll have to SAVE AS occasionally to remove this size-burden if I am deleting images. I once came across a similar effect in GarageBand when a 150 MB file grew to over 3 GB through numerous edits. The file sized reduced when I chose Save As Archive.
BB
by_Buko
Jul 31, 2006
When you do a save as in ID you loose your undos and can’t go back.

Unlike Pagemaker that would go corrupt if the file went over 20MB ID is robust and the files can be huge without corrupting. Diskspace is cheap and file size is not an issue with me.

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