Photoshop Fun: Rotating, Cropping and Resizing

With the advent of scanners and digital photography, the need for altering images has become prevalent. At times, I need to change my images by rotating, cropping and resizing them. There are many advantages to altering your images including being able to do the following:

• Change the image orientation
• Crop out unnecessary backgrounds
• Crop to a certain part of an image
• Zoom into a certain section of an image
• Change the size of an image to fit your needs
• Reduce an image size for sharing with others

With Adobe Photoshop and many other photo editing programs, I am able to do all these things with ease. To get started, here are some instructions for rotating, cropping and resizing objects.

Rotating Images

To change which direction is up or down in the image, rotate it. This is especially helpful when an image is scanned or a photograph is taken sideways. To rotate an image, select from the menu Image then Rotate Canvas. From there select the necessary direction of rotation.

I rotated my image 90 degrees CCW (counterclockwise).

Cropping Images

To select a portion of the image, crop it. When cropping, the excess (areas outside the selected portion) will be deleted. To crop an image, use the selection tool and drag it around the area to be cropped. Select Image, then Crop.

You can crop around a scanned image, as seen in the example above. I cropped the area outside of the layout so only the layout is now showing.

Alternatively, you could crop a certain area of an image. Below are two example of the same image. The first is the original image; the second is the image cropped to a certain area. Notice the impact of cropping the image.

Resizing Images

To make the entire image larger or smaller, resize it. To resize, choose Image, then Image Size. A pop-up window will allow you to type in the resolution and size of the image desired. For use on a computer, the image resolution won't need to be more than 72 pixels per inch. To print out an image or for photo processing, use a high resolution such as 180 pixels per inch or more. After selecting your resolution, fill in the appropriate width and height.

By doing these three things, I have been able to improve the quality of my images greatly. Take advantage of the Adobe Photoshop program and use these techniques for better images.

Most photo-editing programs will have very similar names for the tools to perform the same tasks as explained in this article. Play with your photo-editing program until you find these tools

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