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carol.gimp.orgGIMP BasicsLite Quickies |
Problem: you need to use TheGIMP to make a rectangular image square or you would like to make an 8 x 10 inch print of an 11 x 14 inch photo or perhaps you need to get rid of useless, empty or boring background in order to make the subject of your image stand out better. Cropping is different than scaling an image in that it removes image matter where scaling makes the original image use a different number of pixels.
There are two different ways to engage the crop tool. You can select the crop tool button from the toolbox or you can follow the menus <Image> Tools -> Transform Tools -> Crop & Resize. For the crop tool demonstration, an image from APOD, 2002 November 8, NGC 6369: The Little Ghost Nebula.
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Once the crop tool has been engaged, a left click with the mouse on the image will do two things. First it will shade the areas of the image which have been marked for cropping and draw lines between at the edges of the marked area. One click will shade the whole image and draw only two lines -- you will need to tell the tool the other point. This action is difficult to describe, best to try/see it for yourself instead of trying to make sense of this description. The second thing that happens is the launching of the crop tool dialog. The crop tool is a fairly complex tool; it can be used scientifically (entering the numbers of the desired area into the dialog) or using the corners of the border marks to visually move the selected area or a combination of both. The goal of this demonstration is to make a rectangular image into a square, and both methods should be used to get the best image possible for the goal. |
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Square means the same number of pixels on all sides. 900 pixels is a good number of pixels for this image; type 900 into both the Width and Height of the crop dialog. With the amount of square "scientifically" selected, it is now time to use visual placement to select which pixels are saved and which are discarded. The area selected so far is square but the image contained within is not so good. |
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The corners where the crop lines meet are very special. The upper left and lower right corners allow you to change the dimensions of the crop selection. The lower left and upper right corners allow you to move the selection without changing the dimensions of the selected area. The mouse will tell you what the corner will do; dimension changing corners get a double arrow curser and corners that move the crop selection get the move star. The task at this point in the demonstration is to move the area to a better position for the image. Using only the move corners of the crop area, position the area to display the best area of the image. |
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The actual cropping is initiated by left clicking on the image within the crop selection area or by touching the button marked "Crop" at the bottom of the dialog. |
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Enjoy TheGIMP and all it can do; everyone who ever used the gimp was a beginner once. Perhaps while doing these simple operations you started to get new ideas of things for your images, TheGIMP has a way of doing that to its users. There are several other tutorials available first at TheGIMP's own web site and elsewhere online; if you enjoyed manipulating your images in these simple ways, you will probably enjoy learning more. This author did.
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