"cutting" pictures to different size

[jshorn5]

Hi everyone! I'm brand new and I'm catching on pretty quickly (but my brain is beginning to get mushy).

Here is the one thing I can't seem to find an answer to: is there a way (within Scrapbook Max) to CUT a picture (not crop). By that, I mean to crop out excess picture so that the actual dimensions of the picture change also. For example, say my photo is 3X5 but I need a square picture. Is there a way to keep the picture aspect consistent, but clip out parts of the picture I don't want AND change the size/dimensions? I hope that makes sense...please forgive me if the answer is as plain as the nose on my face, but I'm just missing it!! Thanks so very much!!!

[Marion]

If I understand your question, right click on the picture or clipart or whatever, and on the bottom it says something like "keep aspect" Remove the check mark and then you can change the dimensions to suite your need. I hope this is what you meant.
If not I will try again.

Marion

[jshorn5]

Almost...

Hi, I appreciate you taking a shot at answering my question. It's hard to explain exactly what I mean - I'll try to be a bit more clear (or maybe I'll muddle it up even more!).

As an example, say you have a 3X5 picture of someone and there is a tree in the right hand side of the photo that you want to cut out in order to make the picture a 3X3 square. If I keep the "keep aspect" box checked, I can't crop the tree out or make it 3X3. If I uncheck the "keep aspect" box, I can grab the little box on the right hand side of my picture and scoot it in which will take the tree out AND make my picture 3X3, but now my people are really tall and skinny (not necessarily a bad thing in real life, but it makes the picture look kind funny).

In some picture editing programs, there is a way to scoot the little box in so just the person in your picture shows (and he/she is still proportioned correctly). If I'm still not explaining it in an understandable way, I really apologize and thank you SO very much for trying!!

[MaggieMae]

Cropping

I'm the most untechnical person but I've been able to change the shape of the pictures and keep everything proportional by going to "effects" and then "crop". You can cut out anything you don't want and make the pictures square or whatever. I just love this program!

Hope this helps. You can give it a try. I've cropped out lots of stuff I didn't want.

[Moonbeam]

Yes .. exactly as described above... you can "crop" and make the whole thing smaller.OR move the sides in on a rectangle and make it a square .. so you can make a 6x4 photo a 3x3 if you want.. you can even make a very long narrow strip to fit in an awkward spot

[MaggieMae]

As Moonbeam described, it isn't just the pictures you can crop but everything else. Some alphabets are all together and you can crop in from all sides to get just the letter you want. Big background papers can be cropped from the side or bottom to make narrow strips!

Keep playing - I know you'll love it!

[Squeak]

Once you crop out the parts you don't want, Click 'Ok'. You will be returned to SBM and the cropped image will have sizing handles around it. You can then resize your cropped image by pulling on the size handles. Hope that helps.

[Granny]

Hi jshorn5, welcome to the forum....

What you're are trying to do cannot be done without distorting the picture. If you cut part of it out, then want to make it the size it was before, the picture will be distorted. That is the nature of the beast. My sugestion is to get a program like PaintShop Pro, where you can clone the background, and just paint over the tree with part of the remaining background. The only other way to restore the picture to the same size as before, without distorting the image, is to use the crop tool and make it a square over the picture, crop it, the resize. But if you don't want to loose any more of the image, then sorry, no, there is now way.

Granny

[Lee]

A pictorial tutorial

You got a lot of different answers and I didn't see an, "Ah-ha! I got it!" reply so here's an attempt to put this process into pictures. The fifth image was left out because this forum only allows 4 images at a time. Hope this helps. (These images will only be here for a few days so if you want them, right-click and copy them to your PC)

[Darryl]

I don't know if this will help anyone, but I thought I would mention it in case it wasn't noticed.

On the "Crop Image" dialog, you will also see a checkbox at the bottom labeled "Proportional". If this box is checked, the selection rectangle will maintain the current object size's aspect ratio. This is useful if you don't want the object's size to change when cropping.

Hope that helps.

Darryl

[srussell]

Great response, Lee ... Pictures and diagrams always seem to be worth a 1000 words, don't they?

[jshorn5]

Thanks!!!

Woweee! You guys are all fantastic. Thanks for all of the great replies...I was driving my daughter to camp and back yesterday (an 8 hour adventure) so I wasn't able to check back until today and you all have put a big smile on my face with all of your thoughtful help. I know it's hot everywhere, but I honestly have never seen my car themometer register 115 degrees...it did when I left her at camp. Praying she doesn't melt Thank you again - I'm going to go crop!

[MaggieMae]

Wow, Lee!

Your tutorial with pictures was just what I was trying to describe. Pictures are so much greater! Your expertise is greatly appreciated!

[Lee]

Thanks Steve & Maggie

Pictures & photos really make a difference when trying to explain things. I'm writing a book for digital photography newbies and I plan to fill it with photos and pictures to make it easier to understand.

Let me know if there's anything else I can help explain with pictures.

[Moonbeam]

Fantastic work Lee,
I had a look at your site..Its excellent.You have great ideas!