Paint Shop Pro support - How do you crop to a preset aspect ratio in PSP9?

Author

How do you crop to a preset aspect ratio in PSP9?

Dave Gillingham

2006-01-08, 6:21 am

IN PSP9 I have a standard A4 template that prints four equal sized photos on the
one sheet of A4. So each photo has a length/width ratio of about 1.4/1

I need to crop many of my pics before printing, so crop (laboriously) to 1.4/1
for each as the photo content dictates - usually by doing an approximate crop,
then opening a new canvas of the appropriate size with the right aspect ratio,
then copying the cropped image to that, losing the overlap.

Is there a way to set the crop tool to maintain 1.4/1 as you select the region
to crop to? That would be soooo much quicker.
Dave Gillingham
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Tim

2006-01-08, 7:07 pm

Dave Gillingham wrote:
> IN PSP9 I have a standard A4 template that prints four equal sized
> photos on the one sheet of A4. So each photo has a length/width
> ratio of about 1.4/1
>
> I need to crop many of my pics before printing, so crop (laboriously)
> to 1.4/1 for each as the photo content dictates - usually by doing an
> approximate crop, then opening a new canvas of the appropriate size
> with the right aspect ratio, then copying the cropped image to that,
> losing the overlap.
>
> Is there a way to set the crop tool to maintain 1.4/1 as you select
> the region to crop to? That would be soooo much quicker.
> Dave Gillingham
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> To email me remove the .private from my email address.

Select the Crop Tool, and in the Tool Options palette, enter the size of
one of the cells from your template. Tick the option for "Specify print
size", which will automatically select "Maintain aspect ratio" as well.
Now as you drag on the crop outline, the aspect ratio remains the same
and the resolution is automatically adjusted to maintain the size you
need for your template.
Save this as a preset by clicking the small arrow beside "Presets:",
click the Save icon, and give your preset a name. You will need to make
two separate presets for horizontal and vertical versions.
Next time you need to crop to that size, choose the preset you've
previously saved and the crop outline will give the largest possible
area of the image at the correct aspect ratio. You can then drag the
corners, edges, or the whole of the crop rectangle, and the aspect ratio
and print size will remain fixed.

--
Tim

Dave Gillingham

2006-01-09, 6:22 am

On Sun, 08 Jan 2006 11:50:21 GMT, "Tim" <timmorr64@XremoveXhotmail.com> wrote:

>Dave Gillingham wrote:
>
>Select the Crop Tool, and in the Tool Options palette, enter the size of
>one of the cells from your template. Tick the option for "Specify print
>size", which will automatically select "Maintain aspect ratio" as well.
>Now as you drag on the crop outline, the aspect ratio remains the same
>and the resolution is automatically adjusted to maintain the size you
>need for your template.
>Save this as a preset by clicking the small arrow beside "Presets:",
>click the Save icon, and give your preset a name. You will need to make
>two separate presets for horizontal and vertical versions.
>Next time you need to crop to that size, choose the preset you've
>previously saved and the crop outline will give the largest possible
>area of the image at the correct aspect ratio. You can then drag the
>corners, edges, or the whole of the crop rectangle, and the aspect ratio
>and print size will remain fixed.

Thanks, Tim, that's a good start for me. One problem - while I always want to
maintain the aspect ratio of 1.4/1, to suit the print template, the actual size
of the cropped image may vary. I'd use the print layout's scaling facility to
fit the image to the template.

What I'm doing is:
Aviation photos, & I only want the plane, not lots of blue sky with a tiny
image. And I want to print all the same dimensions to avoid large white borders
in the template if I crop to some other shape.
Dave Gillingham
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To email me remove the .private from my email address.

Trev

2006-01-09, 6:22 am

"Dave Gillingham" <dewg@private.optusnet.com.au> wrote in message
news:p4c4s1983fasklbaoq8tqpku7pppol447s@4ax.com...
> On Sun, 08 Jan 2006 11:50:21 GMT, "Tim" <timmorr64@XremoveXhotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> Thanks, Tim, that's a good start for me. One problem - while I always
> want to
> maintain the aspect ratio of 1.4/1, to suit the print template, the actual
> size
> of the cropped image may vary. I'd use the print layout's scaling
> facility to
> fit the image to the template.
>
> What I'm doing is:
> Aviation photos, & I only want the plane, not lots of blue sky with a tiny
> image. And I want to print all the same dimensions to avoid large white
> borders
> in the template if I crop to some other shape.
> Dave Gillingham
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> To email me remove the .private from my email address.

The 5 x 3.5 inch crop preset is about what you want. Because it is maintain
the ratio to fit a 5x 3.5 when you drag it bigger to take more in or smaller
to take in less and still print at 5 x 3.5 what is actually happening is the
amount of pixels that will be enclosed in the print is varying Or more
precisely the amount of pixels per Sq. inch.

If what you are wanting is to keep the ratio but ignore a fixed print size
you would just uncheck the "specify print size and leave the "maintain
aspect ratio cheeked". This would make little difference to you as you would
then have to size it in print layout again when the first method will do it
all in one go.

Dave Gillingham

2006-01-09, 6:22 am

Thank you both. It's working perfectly for me now - I was just a bit slow to
sort out Tim's suggestion properly.

On Sun, 08 Jan 2006 19:20:07 +1000, Dave Gillingham
<dewg@private.optusnet.com.au> wrote:

>IN PSP9 I have a standard A4 template that prints four equal sized photos on the
>one sheet of A4. So each photo has a length/width ratio of about 1.4/1
>
>I need to crop many of my pics before printing, so crop (laboriously) to 1.4/1
>for each as the photo content dictates - usually by doing an approximate crop,
>then opening a new canvas of the appropriate size with the right aspect ratio,
>then copying the cropped image to that, losing the overlap.
>
>Is there a way to set the crop tool to maintain 1.4/1 as you select the region
>to crop to? That would be soooo much quicker.
>Dave Gillingham
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>To email me remove the .private from my email address.
Dave Gillingham
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To email me remove the .private from my email address.