How to crop a photo in Paint

[Guest]

Just installed XP Pro on my old computer & every thing working fine except:

When I scan photos to XP Pro they all show a white ear on the left & right
side, look like they need to be cropped, I don't see any way to do this with
Paint. When I check the Paint help index for "Cropping Pictures" It only
tells me how to resize a picture. I can't believe there is no way to crop a
picture in this program. I assume I am just missing something here.

Can some one please tell me how to crop the white ears off my Photos?

 

[Yves Alarie]

After opening the picture in Paint. Look at the tools displayed on the left.
Click on the rectangle. Then click where you want to start the crop and drag
over the area you want to keep. Click on File and Save as.

Paint is not great for custom cropping.
A better and free cropping tool:
www.faststone.org

Don't know how you scan, but can you avoid the white ears?

 

[Guest]

Thank you Yves for your reply, but It don't make the ears go away, If I put
the box around the photo and click "Cut" I can make the photo go away, but
putting it around the ears and cut, that don't make the ears go away either.

I am running a multiboot with Win. ME and Win. 2000. Scanner is HP Office
Jet K60 4 years old and it works perfect on those two OS. The ears only
appear on my new XP Pro. and they fill up the screen on both sides of the
photos.

-- I notice now that there is something called "Draw Opaque" on the Paint
menu I remove the checkmark on it and it seems to keep checking itself?

I appreciate your help and will be happy to try any other ideas you may have.

Linusverl

 

[John Inzer]

If you download and install the following
free software, you can crop your files
much easier.

FastStone Image Viewer
http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm

Also...when scanning in Windows XP...
try the following steps. You'll get better
scans and eliminate the "white ears".

Sometimes when using the automatic option
to scan an image the scanner does not correctly
detect the edges of the picture.

In other words...you may have a scan that includes
a portion of your scanner glass. This would
account for the unwanted white area.

On your "Choose Scanning Preferences" screen...
Left Click the "Preview" button. This will show
you a preview of the image you have in the scanner.

You will see a box with square handles in the corners.
If the dotted line does not precisely frame the scan
you can adjust the handles by left click / dragging them.

BTW...using this method...you can scan any portion
of the image you wish.

Also...you can click the "Custom Settings" button
and increase the DPI of the scan. 300DPI would be
a good choice.

--

John Inzer
MS Picture It! MVP
How to ask a newsgroup question:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

 

[Yves Alarie]

This is the problem with paint. Not a good cropping tool, but instead of
using Cut, place and size the rectangle over the area you want to keep and
then Save as. This will make a new file of the area you selected. If you
excluded the ears from the area under the rectangle, they will not be
included in this new file.

I fully support the suggestions of John Inzer.
Use Faststone to crop and try to avoid the problem entirely with a better
scanning method.

For the pictures you have now, it may be that a crop tool is not the most
appropriate. It may be that you need an erasing tool or cloning tool, but
you will not find this in Paint or Faststone. You would need to purchase a
higher level editing software like Microsoft Digital Picture Suite 2006 or
other software offering such tools.

 

[Guest]

Thank you John and Yves. But I my Operating system is Windows XP Pro. I
wonder if we are talking about the same thing here. Yves suggestion to select
the photo with the rectangle and then click "save as" saves both the ears on
the outside of the rectangle as well as the photo inside.

I did crop all the photos by moving them to Windows ME and using that tool,
but still need determine what is causing these white "ears" to be attached to
the photos in the first place.

Johns suggestion about the "Scanning Preferences Screen" don't seem to apply
to my XP Pro. I can only get the photos via the "Scanner and Camera Wizard."
It don't give me a "Preview" button or a box with handles. all I have is the
option to "Set Picture Type," "Set Resolution," Set Destination," "Name
the Photo," and "Test Scanner." The scanner passes the test. and since it
works just fine on Me and Win 2000 I think the problem is with the XP OS.

I would apperciate any other ideas you may have on this subject.

Linus.

 

[Yves Alarie]

What is your scanner model.
Maybe we can dig something.
But all the scanners I have used work exactly like John explained. You click
on the Preview button and the scanning begins, then you get a crop tool to
select exactly the area you want to keep and you click on the Scan button
and now you get the final product.

 

[John Inzer]

Since you say the scanner works on WinME
and Win2000 and not on WinXP...there's a
possibility that you need to search the website
of your scanner's mfg. for an updated WinXP
driver.

--

John Inzer
MS Picture It! MVP
How to ask a newsgroup question:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

 

[David Candy]

You can resize the picture (Image - Attributes) and move the picture about. The size can also be dragged from bottom right corner.

 

[Guest]

Yves describes how most scanners work, and thats the way this one works on Me
And Win 2000. the wizard and the process are exactly the same on both of
those OS. But the XP Pro wizard is a totally different long 7 Window process
that don't give me a preview, rotate, drag or crop option.

A 4 x 6" photo downloads 3.9 x 8.5" And shows to be 591 x 1275 Pixels. so he
white ears are being seen as part of the photos.

My scanner is part of my HP Office Jet K60 all in one. Both my old programs
required me to install it from a disk but the XP Installation found the
hardware and installed everything itself. The printer, copier and fax all
work just fine.

I am wondering if there is a way to eliminate the XP Wizards and what would
happen if I attempted to install this hardware from the original Office Jet
installation disk? If that is not a proper question for this Newsgroup, let
me know and I will follow up on that line of thought elswhere.

I do appreciate all of your help and suggestions, and apologize for making
such a long post.

Linus

 

[John Inzer]

WinXP contains basic drivers for many
machines but there's a good chance that
the HP driver at the following link would
be more functional.

Actually, there's a diagnostic tool you can
run that may help you determine if you require
an update.

HP Officejet k60 All-in-One
http://tinyurl.com/4v8jg

Check the version number of the driver
you are currently using and I suspect it
will be different from the one on the HP site.
Version: 3.10 (A.14.05.09)

--

John Inzer
MS Picture It! MVP
How to ask a newsgroup question:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375