The basics to photoshop croping?
The basics to photoshop croping?
Author
Discussion

Gingerbread Man

Original Poster:

9,173 posts

242 months

Sunday 12th February 2012
quotequote all
I'm thinking of doing a photo book of a trip my girlfriend and I did to OZ late last year. Thinking of using Blurb due to it's excellent reviews.

I need to go through and sort the photos that we've both shot and narrow them down to good ones to keep. I used to crop photos to 6x4" format for storing on the computer, but 6x4" would be too small to be printed in a book.

Can you set Photoshop to crop by the aspect 6x4 but to keep the image as large as possible? For example if I take a photo straight off the camera. It's in a 6x4 format, but obviously bigger than 6" x 4" in practice allowing the photo to be used at large print in the book.

I hope I'm not coming across too complicated!

Was thinking of using the 'large landscape' Blurb book which is 13"x11". 6x4 the best ratio?

kybo

1,166 posts

224 months

Sunday 12th February 2012
quotequote all
There are a few presets you can choose from but I'm not sure what the largest preset is - when the crop tool is selected it's the little icon to the left of the width field (IIRC)

I have no idea if what I do is correct, or good practice, but if I'm not cropping much off I put the pixel size of the original image in and crop the image. But that will retain it's original size. You can use a smaller pixel value, according to the size you want.

Maybe you can use the image size option under the 'Image' toolbar option to make it smaller then use free crop (no values in width/height).

I may, of course, be talking utter rubbish.

Scott

Gingerbread Man

Original Poster:

9,173 posts

242 months

Sunday 12th February 2012
quotequote all
I noticed that when using the rectangle selection mode, you can select by aspect, but it becomes a pain to crop like this as it adds a few extra steps.

Simpo Two

92,708 posts

294 months

Sunday 12th February 2012
quotequote all
Gingerbread Man said:
I need to go through and sort the photos that we've both shot and narrow them down to good ones to keep. I used to crop photos to 6x4" format for storing on the computer, but 6x4" would be too small to be printed in a book.

Can you set Photoshop to crop by the aspect 6x4 but to keep the image as large as possible? For example if I take a photo straight off the camera. It's in a 6x4 format, but obviously bigger than 6" x 4" in practice allowing the photo to be used at large print in the book.
Don't get confused between 6:4 format and 6" x 4".

In the crop windows top left you can set pixel dimensions. If you have enough pixels to start with, try entering 3000px and 2000px. Then draw the crop tool and whatever you select will end up that size in one step.

RobDickinson

31,343 posts

283 months

Sunday 12th February 2012
quotequote all
you can enter 4 and 3 in measurement and it will restrict to that aspect and I dont think it resamples.


Dont confuse resolution with print size or dpi. make sure you have as much resolution as you can regardless of print size.

crmcatee

5,805 posts

256 months

Sunday 12th February 2012
quotequote all
You'll soon learn that saving space for files is a false economy. Especially given the cost of storage now-a-days.

Gingerbread Man

Original Poster:

9,173 posts

242 months

Sunday 12th February 2012
quotequote all
So is the best way to do 3000x2000 pixels?

Think the images come as 8mp images, not sure of size off the top of my head.

Getting confused is exactly what I've been doing. Bad times.

leeb

1,074 posts

272 months

Sunday 12th February 2012
quotequote all
surely you would just crop it to the larges multiple of 6x4 allowable by the file size at 300dpi. im sure theres a calculation somewhere, but if you were to save it as 18" x 12", it will be big enough for your computer, but the same aspect ratio to print the full area.....

Gingerbread Man

Original Poster:

9,173 posts

242 months

Sunday 12th February 2012
quotequote all
I was hoping that I could dial in the ratio and it would keep my crop as large as possible without me doing the maths so to speak.

SuperNiceBig

644 posts

262 months

Sunday 12th February 2012
quotequote all
Have used Blurb and pleased with the results. Check out the designs of peoples books for lay out ideas, you may not want to stick to 6x4 for every shot.

RobDickinson

31,343 posts

283 months

Sunday 12th February 2012
quotequote all
Gingerbread Man said:
I was hoping that I could dial in the ratio and it would keep my crop as large as possible without me doing the maths so to speak.
yes use 4cm by 3cm in the crop size toolbar and then stretch the crop accordingly.

Gingerbread Man

Original Poster:

9,173 posts

242 months

Sunday 12th February 2012
quotequote all
SuperNiceBig said:
Have used Blurb and pleased with the results. Check out the designs of peoples books for lay out ideas, you may not want to stick to 6x4 for every shot.
I have a feeling that this books going to be a pain in the arse.

Would you recommend sizing the pictures to my layout. Seeing what fits then sizing the images to suit the book!?

jurbie

2,440 posts

230 months

Sunday 12th February 2012
quotequote all
Gingerbread Man said:
I have a feeling that this books going to be a pain in the arse.

Would you recommend sizing the pictures to my layout. Seeing what fits then sizing the images to suit the book!?
I would suggest forget resizing your pictures and just use the highest quality pics you've got. You can then either fit them straight into the boxes or increase them in size inside the boxes thus effectively cropping them. Having larger files will give you much more leeway and don't assume you will want a book full of 6x4 images, you might but that would be very boring considering what can be done with Blurb.

Edited by jurbie on Monday 13th February 22:09

SuperNiceBig

644 posts

262 months

Monday 13th February 2012
quotequote all
Gingerbread Man said:
I have a feeling that this books going to be a pain in the arse.

Would you recommend sizing the pictures to my layout. Seeing what fits then sizing the images to suit the book!?
You need a design/style/layout/grid whatever you want to call it first to work with. Some pics you'll crop in close some maybe full page bleed, etc etc. Takes a lot of thought and time! Remember to post it up for us to see.

Gingerbread Man

Original Poster:

9,173 posts

242 months

Tuesday 13th March 2012
quotequote all
It would appear that if you dial in 3in x 2in into the crop tools dimensions, but leave the resolution empty, it crops to a 3x2 aspect ratio but not to a 3 inch x 2 inch size. Don't get it myself but it does...

K12beano

20,854 posts

304 months

Tuesday 13th March 2012
quotequote all
It simply doesn't know how many pixels to put in your 3 inches x 2 inches space!

Gingerbread Man

Original Poster:

9,173 posts

242 months

Tuesday 13th March 2012
quotequote all
K12beano said:
It simply doesn't know how many pixels to put in your 3 inches x 2 inches space!
Well, it seems to do the job for me!

RobDickinson

31,343 posts

283 months

Tuesday 13th March 2012
quotequote all
Gingerbread Man said:
It would appear that if you dial in 3in x 2in into the crop tools dimensions, but leave the resolution empty, it crops to a 3x2 aspect ratio but not to a 3 inch x 2 inch size. Don't get it myself but it does...
yes. just as I said. ...

Gingerbread Man

Original Poster:

9,173 posts

242 months

Tuesday 13th March 2012
quotequote all
RobDickinson said:
Gingerbread Man said:
It would appear that if you dial in 3in x 2in into the crop tools dimensions, but leave the resolution empty, it crops to a 3x2 aspect ratio but not to a 3 inch x 2 inch size. Don't get it myself but it does...
yes. just as I said. ...
Sorry chap, didn't totally understand. I see now you have to leave the DPI blank.

flat-planedCrank

3,697 posts

232 months

Tuesday 13th March 2012
quotequote all



It'll just be letting you define how large 3in x 2in is on your image, hence working out the dpi for you.


You can see the cropped image dpi in the 'image size' dialogue after smile