Quick crops and image resizing
IrfanView packs some mighty editing features in its tiny download.
(Credit: CNET Networks)For making color corrections, printing, managing photo albums, or any of 100 other routine image-editing tasks associated with digital photography, commercial programs like Adobe Photoshop or Corel Paint Shop Pro are great solutions. But if you just need to resize and crop your personalized South Park character image to fit on your Facebook or MySpace page, a simpler option is in order.
Luckily, there are a variety of free and easy ways to crop and resize your digital photographs. One of the quickest and easy downloads for doing so is IrfanView, a longtime favorite image viewer that has added more and more editing functionality through the years.
The tiny download weighs in at 1.24MB and literally can be installed in seconds. Once you've got it running, open the image that you want to edit and select Image > Resize/Resample to edit the size of your photo. To crop, click your cursor in the top left corner of the area you want to crop, then drag the cursor to create a rectangle. Select Edit > Crop Selection, and voila!
Another free application I've become a big fan of recently is Resizr, created by Matt Miller back in 2006. Resizr is a free online tool that lets you upload an image from your hard drive or via a URL. You can then rotate, crop, and resize your image, as well as make edits to brightness and contrast. I was impressed to recently discover that I could even adjust levels and convert PNG files to JPEGs.
Resizr's space interface holds several quick and valuable options for editing images.
(Credit: CNET Networks/CBS)What do you use to quickly resize and crop digital images? Tell me about it in the comments.
- Topics:
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Digital photography,
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Windows Software
- Tags:
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Windows software,
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Webware,
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cropping,
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resizing,
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images
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it's has simple features which is what i want, not bloaty and easy to use
Also - check this fancy new onine image editing tool at http://www.picnik.com. Make sure to check out the "Create" tab. There are some AMAZING photo filters which up to now have really only been available in Photoshop - and that required pretty decent PS knowledge. :)
John
I've been using Irfanview since 1997. Oh and let be recommend to anyone that even though it's freeware for home use, please please do the right thing and send Irfan Skiljan a small donation. $10 or so, it's nothing. And yet it's immense.
2. Project Dogwaffle free version - here at download.com too, if you didn't notice. The resampling is very good quality, I'm told, even some hard-core users of Photoshop have told me they liked the visual result of PD's sampling better than that of PS.
3. ArtWeaver
4. MS Paint - I only recently discovered that in MS Paint, when you have a selection, you can save with a transparent color (I think if it's white background it makes that the transparent pixels in alpha, something like that. Anyway, very useful for some compositing jobs)
5. PD Artist - keep an eye on GAOTD (GiveAwayOfTheDay) for a free offer to PD Artist.
-Philip
Thanks.
sas
You should be able to do a search to find something similar, even freeware. Try searching for Inpaint, Teorex, or something similar and check out accompanying results that show. Hope this helps.
I have used infranview a long time ago but have many other lite apps that worj much better 4me,for simple stuff as was said Fastone in nice....and best of all its FREE.
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Graphic/Graphic-Editors/Inpaint.shtml
there is a free Photo Manager by Magix at this URL - http://www.magix.com/us/free-downloads/free-software/photo-manager/
which I value highly for its unique (as far as I know) ability to straighten out photos without losing a single pixel. All the other photo editors and managers - if they have an "any angle" feature at all - simply tilt the photo in a vertical rectangular frame, and you have to trim off the resulting black long triangles from each edge. Depending on the tilt, you lose a fair bit of the picture.
The Magix Photo Manager rearranges the whole picture to any angle of your choice. You just draw a slanting line anywhere in the photo according to the tilt of the photo, and the photo Manager takes that as the new horizontal axis and rearranges the whole photo correctly and perfectly - as if by Magic.
This is invaluable for me as I have a tendency to tilt the camera a bit when pushing down the shutter button. It is also invaluable in my work a in maintaining a couple of web site for 2 Real Estate agents who send me pictures of their listings, including many pictures for a slide show of the interiors. And many of these pictures are tilted for the same reason. It's a life saver to be able to straighten out the pictures without losing anything.
This program has several other good features. It's layout is a bit different from the usual, but after a bit of hunting around and getting used to it, one can access things easily. The only feature I do not like is that the photos in a folder are not listed by name, but only shown as thumbnails under the working window. This necessitates much close peering at little thumbnails to find a particular picture in a folder. At least, I have not discovered yet if there is a listing by name. And so far I have been too pressed for time to see if there is such a listing. Best regards, Peter;
To resize, press Z and you can enter pixel size or size in inches.
I purchased this almost 10 years ago I think - I've tried other viewers - but none have been so fast and easy to use. Slideshows, thumbnails for "contact sheets". Really quick simple photo functions such as brightening, cropping, resizing, rotating, pasting a "PrintScreen" and editing it for use in a word processor, etc... I love the fact you can go full screen and have a slide show on the full screen.
There are no stupid icons. Menu or keyboard driven. And did I say fast!
Now you buy VueScan (it works with most scanners) and Vueprint is included.
Office picture manager is also included in MS office 2003.
AND ITS FREE!!!
Find it super useful and I do not need to install another program just doing a simple resize.
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by sjrhj5
October 7, 2008 11:04 PM PDT
- Does anyone have a good program for free-hand outlining an object and then cutting it out? The old Microsoft Photo used to do this (years ago, and now not supported). Photoshop does it, but it's a pain. Anything easy/cheap out there?
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by Microwave
October 8, 2008 4:52 PM PDT
- INPAINT is one of many.
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by oldwellsey
November 16, 2008 11:22 PM PST
- Hi,
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See all 69 Comments >>Try American Systems Print Screen Deluxe. My 1999 Version did all that you say you would like to do. I have just checked their website, and the new Version 7 is USD 19.95 + an extra 15.00 if you want it on CD. It still has all those features.