Scale and Expand / Crop

These instructions are Adobe Photoshop specific, so you may have to adapt these procedures to your specific program.

This is our original Image, we are going to scale it to a desired size of 200 x 200 (W by H), which is a perfect square. As you can see, the picture is rectangular.

The next step after scaling is to determine whether we should crop or expand the picture. I will go through both procedures.

Please keep in mind that these are just sample procedures and may or may not need to be applied in your particular situation.

Expanding the Image

In this case we are going from the original 400 x 500 image, so choose the largest axis (500) and scale it down to 200. The vertical measurement of 400 automatically goes to 160 when you type 200 into the height dialog.

We end up with an image sized 160 x 200 (W by H).

This picture is not wide enough, so we want to "pad" it to make it's dimensions exactly 200 x 200. Notice that in Photoshop the padded area color takes on the back color slot, in this case light grey.

Crop Method 1

Based on our image contents, I think the best solution would be to crop the bottom.

So first we scale our 400 x 500 picture along it's smallest axis to 200 pixels. The horizontal measurement of 500 automatically goes to 250 when you type 200 into the width dialog.

The resulting picture has dimensions of 200 x 250.

Before crop

Next the picture needs it's bottom portion cropped off, so I use the "Canvas Size" option in Photoshop, making sure to only crop off the bottom 50 pixels of out 250 height picture.

the section below the red line is going to be cropped.

Notice the anchor arrows in the above dialog.

The final desired product, a 200x200 image.

Crop Method 2

You may want to crop out irrelevant parts of the photo in order to focus on the child in the image.

Original scan, desired crop section ("zoomin") outlined in red.

In Photoshop, there is a tool in the toolbar that appears as follows:

This tool allows you to drag a box across the section of the scan you you want to keep. The box thus created has handles that allow you to adjust the width and height of the crop.

A basic description of the crop handles and their functions.

When the box is sized and placed over the desired section, just double click inside the box (not on a handle) to perform the selected crop.

Final product, 'Zoomed in'.

Note: Being exact with the dimensions of the images you work with is not extremely important, since we scale the images to fit the flyers on our web server. Just make sure the images resolution is high enough so that we are not "scaling up" your image.

Irfanview

In Irfanview, the crop process is a little different (however very similar to Photoshop method 2). You drag a box across the opened image in the window, and you can then size the selection area afterwards, you will not see 'handles' like in Photoshop. The size of the crop area is displayed in the top of the program window, which makes it easy to do fast and precise adjustments. Once area adjustment has been done, then go to the "Edit" menu, and choose "Crop Selection". Then save the file as usual and your image is ready.

Conclusion

You can see the importance of getting a closeup of the missing child's face for the best clarity in a faxed flyer. This is why these image editing procedures are vital in the creation of a BeyondMissing Flyer.