cropping in Paint

[dunavan]

The overview of Paint in my Windows XP Home says I can
crop a picture. There is no crop button on the tool bar
and i can't figure any other way to do it. Help,
please. .v.

 

[Yves Alarie]

After you open the picture, look at the tool bar on the left. You will see a
rectangle at the top. Click on it.
to start your crop, move your mouse pointer at the top left side point in
the picture where you want to start cropping and drag your mouse pointer
downward and to the right to cover the area you want to crop. If you don't
like it, click outside the area with your mouse and start cropping
again.When you have the area you want, click on File and Save as and save
the cropped area as a new file.
Never edit an original photo. Right click on the original file and click on
Copy on the opening menu. Hold the Ctrl key down and press the letter V.
This will copy (paste) the original file in your folder. The name of this
new file will be "Copy of original file name". You crop or edit "Copy of
.....", not the original file.

 

[dunavan]

Thanks so much. All works beautifully except that "save
as" just saves the original copy I was working on. How do
I specify just the area within the dotted lines? Thanks
again, .v.

 

[Yves Alarie]

I seldom use Paint and I made a mistake in the last step.
Here we go.
You now have the area you want to crop. Right click in this area. A menu
will open, click on Copy (there is also Copy to, don't use this one). When
you click on Copy, the area selected is saved into the Window XP Clipboard.
Then, click on File, New. You may then get a message about saving changes to
the file displayed on your screen. Answer No if you get this message. After
you click on New a white blank space will take the place of the image
previously displayed (the white space may be smaller, don't worry about it).
Click on Edit and click on Paste. The cropped area of your image will now be
displayed on your screen. Click on File, click on Save as and give it a new
name. You can just add the word Crop to the name of the original file. Make
sure that you save the image as JPG as given in the file type box below the
box where you enter the name of the new file. You can then open this file
like any other photo file.
Nothing wrong with using Paint to crop. It is a way to get started and it
may be all you need. If you want to do more fancy types of cropping and work
more with images you may want to look into image imaging software more
advanced than Paint.

 

[Guest]

It works!!! Believe it or not, I am a photojournalist in a
16,000 people mountain area. This was not my profession
but I enjoy the part time work. I can take lots of well
balanced photos with my digital, but my eyesight is sooooo
bad I can't see the details. The paper won't let me do
anything except crop. And I can make a wonderful picture
with the ability to crop only. You are a lifesaver. Volney

 

[Yves Alarie]

Glad everything is working. I can understand why the paper will not allow
anything other than a simple crop. What can be done to a photo by graphic
artists is just amazing, even using inexpensive software.