Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
If you were straightening the photo (rather than angling it), you've got a nice straight
picture, but the edges are probably pretty ragged, since the original had slanted, unro-
tated sides. You can take care of that by cropping the photo as explained next.
Cropping Pictures
Whether or not you straighten your digital photos, sooner or later you'll probably need to
crop
them—trim them to a certain size. Most people crop photos for one of two reasons: To
print on standard-size photo paper, you usually need to cut away part of the image to make it
fit the paper. Then there's the “I don't want
that
in my picture” reason. Fortunately, Elements
makes it easy to crop away distracting background objects and people you'd rather not see.
A few cameras take photos that are proportioned exactly right for printing on standard-size
paper, like 4″ x 6″ or 8″ x 10″. (An image's width-to-height ratio is known as its
aspect ra-
tio
.) But most cameras create images that aren't the same proportions as any of the standard
photo paper sizes.
Figure 3-7
shows an example of cropping to fit on such paper.
