This is one way. It works in PE1 and 3 so I assume it’s in 2.
In the layers palette right click the background layer and duplicate it. With the new layer active hold down ctrl and left click it in the layers palette and the image will be automatically selected. Go to Select, Grow to be sure you have everything. Now use Image, Crop and you should have what you need.
Bob
Bob
I follow what you are suggesting, but I think there is a small flaw. When you make a selection, the "marching ants" boundary follows the 50% opacity contour. The OP is looking to not remove anything which as a non-zero opacity.
This might work: Use the magic wand with tolerence set to max [255]. This will select anything non-transparent. Then do Image/Crop.
Colin,
In my test it appeared that the Select Grow got it all but I like your solution better. Never new the tolerance could go above 99. I’ll have to try it.
Bob
Never new the tolerance could go above 99
Neither did I, but I tried 999 and it told me that was too big and advised me that 255 was the max. Live and learn.
I didn’t get any of this to work 🙁
All I got selected was the actual original image, and not the drop-shadow. Perhaps I should have explained better what I’m working with….
I have this screenshot as a 640×400 ".GIF" image which I opened in PSE 2 and edited to my liking, then I marked the whole image (CTRL-A), copied it (CTRL-C), opened up a new, blank image with a much bigger size (to have enough room for the shadow). Strangely enough, the DPI setting alongside when selecting the image size was 18 DPI! I changed this to 72 DPI, as I understand this is what I need to do for web graphics, so 72 DPI it is…
OK, when I had the new (larger) blank image window in front of me I pasted the image into it (CTRL-V), and finally added a suitable drop-shadow by going to "Layer styles". That’s it. All I want to do now is crop it in a way that doesn’t cut off any of the faded shadows.
By following the instructions given here I was only be able to select the actual 640×400 screenshot, but I need to include the drop shadow as well.
added a suitable drop-shadow by going to "Layer styles"
Exactly how did you do this?
It sounds like you don’t have a flattened single layer.
BTW, the PPI [not DPI] setting is totally irrelevant for Web images. If you do a Save for Web, this information is discarded.
I’ve probably missed something real obvious to most people, but since I’m a beginner I might not have noticed….
I’ve tried it with a flattened image as well as layers, but no luck so far. I understand that there is no "auto-crop" function as such in Photoshop elements 2, but it’s a matter of selecting the parts of the image you want to keep, then crop it, correct?
After having duplicated the layer (why do I have to do that anyway? Why not just work on the flattened image?), then holding CTRL while left clicking on (the newly copied) layer’s thumbnail I see a "hand and dotted-line-box on top" mouse pointer), and *the whole* image is selected! If I crop it doesn’t do anything -simply because there’s nothing to crop.
Why doesn’t just the outline of the image itself get selected? It’s a web-image drawn on a transparent background. The background changes from small coloured squares (indicating transparency) to a white background when flattened.
Another thing: does it matter which tool I have selected when I do the CTRL-left click?
I do however believe that I’ve gotten a bit closer to the solution. Having chosen the "Magic wand" tool, I simply click on the white background, and a nice outline of "marching ants" is seen around my web graphic. But again, also the entire outer frame of the image has "marching ants" as well, so there’s nothing to crop. If I could only remove them from the "frame" of the image….
One possible method:
After you do your magic wand background selection go to selection>invert, then edit>copy, then file>new from clipboard.
That should give you a new document that just fits your selection.
