cropping photos and then printing

[Anne]

I am using Picture It and do not know enough about
sizing, etc. to know what I need to do to print a cropped
portion of a photo to 4 X 6 that will be clear and in
focus.

I am also new to newsgroups. Do I need to come to this
page to post a message, or can I do it from Outlook
Express. I tried that, and got a message saying it could
not be sent because no sender was listed. I subscribed to
the group. Duh! Anne

 

[Jake]

-----Original Message-----
I am using Picture It and do not know enough about
sizing, etc. to know what I need to do to print a cropped
portion of a photo to 4 X 6 that will be clear and in
focus.

I am also new to newsgroups. Do I need to come to this
page to post a message, or can I do it from Outlook
Express. I tried that, and got a message saying it could
not be sent because no sender was listed. I subscribed to
the group. Duh! Anne
.
You can download a 3rd party program from the internet

to crop photos. Windows does not have this capability.
You can go to the below website for a free download of
IrfanView or many others, or download ImageResizer for
($11). I have one question, How are you putting photos
on your PC, from a digital camera? If you are, then you
have a photo/graphics editor installed and you can use
that to crop pictures. Or are you getting them off other
disks or websites?
http://pcworld.com/downloads

 

[John Inzer]

"Jake wrote"

You can download a 3rd party program from the internet
to crop photos. Windows does not have this capability.
You can go to the below website for a free download of
IrfanView or many others, or download ImageResizer for
($11). I have one question, How are you putting photos
on your PC, from a digital camera? If you are, then you
have a photo/graphics editor installed and you can use
that to crop pictures. Or are you getting them off other
disks or websites?
http://pcworld.com/downloads

===========================================
Jake,

The question is about Microsoft Picture It!, and
Outlook Express.

Would it be possible for you to read the messages
before you post your answers? Are you just trying
to confuse people?

 

[John Inzer]

I am using Picture It and do not know enough about
sizing, etc. to know what I need to do to print a cropped
portion of a photo to 4 X 6 that will be clear and in
focus.

=========================================

Hi,

I'm guessing the 4x6 was a scan and when you cropped
it you lost too much resolution. I don't know your version
of Picture It! but on your scanner screen try choosing
"My Scanner Software"...this will allow you to make
several adjustments that the automatic scan does not
have. If you scan your image at 300DPI, you should be
able to crop it and print it successfully.

Here's a link to a great site for scanning info:

A few scanning tips:
http://www.scantips.com/

For additional information please post your questions
about Picture It! in the pictureit newsgroup.

=========================================

I am also new to newsgroups. Do I need to come to this
page to post a message, or can I do it from Outlook
Express. I tried that, and got a message saying it could
not be sent because no sender was listed. I subscribed to
the group. Duh! Anne

=========================================
Yes you can use Outlook Express to read and post
messages to newsgroups.

If you go to...Start / Run...and copy/paste the following:

"(without the quotes)

It should set up Outlook Express for the pictureit newsgroup.

On your Outlook Express screen, go to...Tools / Accounts /
msnews.microsoft.com / Properties button. On the
General tab, you should have a "Name" and an "e-mail
address" entered....Apply / OK. The name will show in the
"From" field of your messages and can be anything you like.
The e-mail address can/should be spamproofed.

Example:
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Yves Alarie]

The quality of the print of the crop depends on three factors (if the
picture is in focus, the crop will be no matter what).
1. How many pixels the photo contains. Here is a rule of thumb:
3 Megapixels or above: superb 4 x 6 or 5 x 7 prints and great 8 x 10.
2 Megapixels: superb 4 x 6, very good 5 x 7 and good 8 x 10.
1 Megapixel: good 4 x 6, average 5 x 7 and so so 8 x 10.

2. How much you crop out of the picture.
When you crop, you simply remove pixels around the area you want to keep.
So, from the rule above, if you start with a 3 Megapixels picture and you
crop half of it you are left with 1.5 Megapixels. You can expect a very good
4 x 6 print. In essence, the smaller the crop is, out of a picture, the more
degradation you can expect because you are keeping only a small number of
pixels to fill the same area of the original picture.

3. How good is you printer. The rule above is for when you copy the photos
to a CD-R and your take it to a professional lab for printing with a Fuji
printer to get the same quality prints as with film (available at many
places such as Costco, Sam, Wal-Mart, Walgreen, Ritz camera etc.). If you
print yourself, start with making a large crop, say of half of the picture,
and see what you get.
There are many version of Picture It and I only know Picture IT Digital
Image Pro 7. With this version it is very easy to crop for a specific
dimension (say 4 x 6). All you do is change the Custom crop selection to 4 x
6 (or 6 x 4) depending upon how you want your crop to come out (horizontal
vs vertical) and just place your mouse at the top left point where you want
to start the crop and drag from there.
If you have a different version of Picture It, and it does not work as
above, post again for directions and John Inzer will surely answer.

Yes you need to post here and then get your answer from here. The is also a
newsgroup specific for Picture It.

 

[Yves Alarie]

Jake, all the help we can get is welcome but

1. IrfanView does not maintain the aspect ratio. The user must calculate it
(or with experience get pretty good at it without calculation) in order to
get what you want. For printing I would never use it, particularly when you
want to send the photo to a printing lab.

2. Image Resizer is not a cropping tools. What it does is simply reducing
the size of the file (file size and pixels size are two different things,
although obviously they are related) and is a great tool to reduce the size
of files for e-mail or using for e-bay or Webb display. Not the thing to use
in this case, particularly if you print.

3. Although Picture IT (at least the version I have) will crop to a specific
aspect ratio as selected, a novice will find it a little confusing at first
but you get the hang of it. Like anything else, you need a little practice.
I don't know a better cropping tool for maintaining the aspect ratio for
printing that a novice can use. All photo editors can crop. It is a
different proposition when you want to print a crop, say at 4 x 6, and you
want the crop to fit in exactly.

4. Never had a problem with Picture IT conflicting with anything else on my
computer. I have Photo Shop 7, I try not to use it, unless forced to. And
then I don't know how many other accumulated software obtained with
different cameras, scanners, etc. Useless all of them (except Photo Shop)
for the two major functions that a novice wants:
a) Remove Red Eye. Click and Click with Picture IT. Red eye gone. Try this
with Photo Shop.
b) Crop and maintain the aspect ratio for a print. Cropping is so easy, but
maintaining the aspect ratio is difficult for a novice. Picture IT does it
quite nicely, after a little practice.

4. Never heard of PhotoMaxPro or Photo Studio but if this is what you
prefer, fine with me.

 

[John Inzer]

restate HAD, Picture It and deleted it for it conflicted
with many of the other graphics programs that I have.
PhotoMax Pro and Photo Studio are much better. The two
programs (IrfanView and ImageResizer)are very simple and
easy for her to use.

=====================================
The question was clearly about Picture It! and
Outlook Express. You did not address either
program but went in a totally different direction.

The OP has Picture It! installed and it's working...
she doesn't need the programs you recommended
to accomplish the task she asked about.

 

[Yves Alarie]

Thanks for the compliment. I also learned from your answers and preferences
on photo editing software.
Very interesting to read your approach, quite different at times from mine.
You pay a lot of attention to photo retrieval capabilities of the software.
I am just the opposite. I use XP to rename everything to my liking for
searching, This is because I am old and used to the old DOS searching for
files techniques. But, your point on hierarchal searching is well taken. I
need to get with it!

 

[Anne]

Thanks to you each for answering my post! I will read all
more carefully tomorrow.....and on scanning through there
seems to be much I can use.
I download pictures into My Pictures by scanning my
prints, from a WalMart CD, or from an "inexpensive"
digital.
I have just started using Picture It, as it came on the
CD with my photos last week. I did crop one this
afternoon, and saved it back to my pictures, then printed
it, and it was fine.
I had assumed that it was like other programs, and would
have to know all about pixels, etc., which I
don't......but I'm delighted to have the guide lines abd
the scanning site, and look forward to giving it all a
try! Thanks again, Anne

 

[John Inzer]

Hi,

You're welcome.

BTW, I see you are still posting from the web.
If you get set up with Outlook Express, you'll like
it much better.

 

[Yves Alarie]

Ask and you shall receive!
This is a friendly site. Nobody will tell you that you asked a stupid
question.Quite the opposite. When a novice asks a question, people will try
their best to answer you.

 

[John Inzer]

Ahhh! I see you're using Outlook Express...
much easier...huh? Faster too.

To completely remove the background from
an image you would need a cutout tool and
I don't think your version has that. The new
version 9 programs are just hitting the store
shelves now if you are interested in a more
advanced program.

Here's the new top of the line:

Digital Image 9 Suite:
http://tinyurl.com/hd4t

Thanks for the picture of your puppies but
it might be better to post your images on
a website and just post the link in the news
group.

There are many online photo albums if
you would like to try one:

Guide to free online photo albums:
http://tinyurl.com/3x3a

I've been satisfied with ClubPhoto.
http://www.clubphoto.com/

 

[David Shiflet [MS]]

When viewing some pictures in Windows, you can usually choose the "Print
pictures" task in the left-hand task pane. This will bring up a photo
printing wizard. One of the pages will let you choose to print 4x6 pictures,
automatically cropped to fit. I recommend you try this out before investing
a lot of time in photo editing tools you might not need.

This wizard handles laying out multiple pictures on the page.

 

[Jose]

I wasn't looking carefully, the editor has the appearance of a viewer, but
it is more. iMatch includes a lot of editing functionality. But the cropper
is basic. No aspect ratio. So I am down to that one function.

 

[Yves Alarie]

What this Wizard does is simply crop the edges of the photo (centers the
photo) to fit the size you select.
It does not, for example, crop the face of a person out of a photo. Photo
editing tools will do this, but few will do it automatically preserving an
aspect ratio your select. This is the whole trick. If you want to fill a 4 x
6 print exactly, you need to crop with this aspect ratio. Otherwise you get
white edges, or the Wizard will cut edges to fit.