Resizing Using Adobe Photoshop

[Steve in PR]

I have an older version of PhotoShop. It has so many bells and whistles that I figured I didn’t need any more. So, some of the names may be different but it should basically be the same for either newer or older versions. If you are doing this for the first time make sure you give your work a different name than the original so you don’t lose the original photo.

One of the goals I have with any image that I want to upload to TQ is to reduce the amount of unneeded space and maximize the subject in the picture.

To do this, I open the file where I am storing the image I want to work on and right-click it. I move to the "Open With" option and left-click PhotoShop.

The image opens on PhotoShop ready to be edited.
The first thing I do is to crop the image, that is, select the area of the image that I want to keep. I select the "Rectangular Marquee Tool" (Which is the box with dashed lines. It is usually the default setting when you open the program. You can also select it by pressing "M" on the keyboard) and move the pointer to where I want to begin a corner of the area I want to keep.

I left-click and hold the button and drag the pointer to where I want to place the opposite corner then I release the button. The area inside the dashed lines now represents the area that will remain. If you aren’t happy with the selection, just left-click anywhere on the image and it will erase the box.

Once you are happy with the area selected, click on "Image" in the drop-down menu and select "Crop". All that you should see is what you selected to keep. If you aren’t happy with what you see, you can click "edit" in the drop-down menu area and "Select Undo" and you are back to where you started.

If you are happy then let’s make sure the image that remains is the size you want.

Click on "Image" in the drop-down area and left click on "Image Size". A new box will open and you will see a few options. Look for "Print Size".

Make sure that the unit of measure is set to inches (or whatever unit of measure you are comfortable with).
The little bracket with the chain means that the width and the height are tied together. That is, if you change one, the other will automatically resize itself to maintain the same ratio or proportion. (If you click on the box below that says "Constrain Proportions", each dimension is now independent of the other.)

Is your picture a portrait (High and narrow) or a landscape (Wide and low)? If I cropped my image to maximize the appearance of my subject, I think a good size is 6 to 8 inches wide, if it’s a portrait and 10 to 12 inches wide if it is a landscape.

Just click on the width box and enter the desired width. The image may decrease drastically in size on the screen, but when it prints or when it is viewed, it will appear at the size you specified!

If you are happy, click "Menu" in the drop-down area, click "Save as" and give your image a name. Check to see what the destination folder is and change it to where you want to save it (For example, "My Documents" or "My Pictures") then click save.

That’s all there is to resizing an image in Adobe PhotoShop. You can now upload it to a photo-sharing site like PhotoBucket and post it to TQ! (See the instructions for how to do this in the Digital Camera Tech Tips area.)