Over complicated photo manipulation programmes

[Broadback]

Is it me or are they over complicated? All I want to do is select areas of a photo then print that selection on a defined paper size. Now I use Memory map, with that you can selects an area, alter its size, move it over the map (which after all is essentially a photograph) to select the are required then print it on whatever sized paper you wish. Why cannot photo programmes be as straightforward? Perphaps there is one, if so I have not been able to find it. 

[Rik]

Most are complicated, BB, as they set out to do one of the most complex jobs, BB.

[kinmel]

Google's Picasa 3 does it (and everything else ) simply and easily.

In picasa, double click the image to go into the editor, crop the area of interest, apply the change, print it at whatever size you want, right click the cropped image and select undo all changes and the original is back in place.

Literally takes 30 seconds.

[Niall]

Photoshop elements 8 is good. I use it when needed. It's got simple settings, but I'm not sure if it does what you want without fiddling as I'm yet to print anything. In fact I've barely used my Epson stylus R800 since I've bought it a few years ago

[DorsetBoy]

Paint 

[Broadback]

Google's Picasa 3 does it (and everything else ) simply and easily.

In picasa, double click the image to go into the editor, crop the area of interest, apply the change, print it at whatever size you want, right click the cropped image and select undo all changes and the original is back in place.

Literally takes 30 seconds.

I can still not find a way of selecting an area to a specific size (I want 7X5 inches for a photo frame), I've yet to find a program that will do this. I tried using Picasa but when I printed it the photo only used about 1/3 of the paper.   

[Niall]

That might be down to the printer settings. I've had that happen when the actual printer settings tab had the fit to page unchecked. It could be as simple as that. Or not

You may have altered the ppi too, that will change the image size. I forget the ratio, but the higher the smaller. You can make a big picture the size of a credit card

{edit} http://www.digicamguides.com/print/aspect-ratio.html

[Lona]

Simplest to use is Irfanview and it's free.

http://www.irfanview.com/

[esh]

There are many things to take into account in what you want; it's actually a fairly specific thing, not as simple as you probably imagine.

1) Firstly you want the aspect ratio of the photo to be as you want. 7x5 (inches) is obviously a 7/5 = 1.4 aspect ratio. 14x10 is also the same aspect ratio obviously. Hence, your first step is to achieve this aspect ratio. If your photo is 1400 pixels across, you will want to crop it to 1000 pixels tall. This achieves the aspect ratio you desire. While you could ask for 7x5 in a program, what if your image is NOT 7x5 aspect ratio? Does it just resize and make the image ratio look odd? Or does it crop? If it crops, which bit does it crop? This is fairly hard to automate.

2) Now you want to achieve the output size you want. There are two ways of doing this...

2a) Resize/resample the image. If you have a 1400 pixels wide image with a dpi (resolution) of 72 (ie. 72 pixels = 1 inch) then you want your width in pixels to be 1400/72*7 = 136. Remember to scale the other direction in the same aspect ratio (most programs should do this for you, in other words we want the vertical direction to scale down so it maintains your desired aspect ratio). In this case, 1000/72*5=69 pixels.

2b) Having achieved your desired aspect ratio, go to your application print settings and scale the output down to achieve your desired width/height.

The second option, 2b, is far better. If you do the 2a method you are actively throwing away resolution from your photo. In the second case, the printer can optionally increase its output dpi and you will simply get a photo with more fine detail. This is not the case if you have resampled the image.

Set your paper type, position the image in your print preview, and go.

[kinmel]

I can still not find a way of selecting an area to a specific size (I want 7X5 inches for a photo frame), I've yet to find a program that will do this. I tried using Picasa but when I printed it the photo only used about 1/3 of the paper.   

The final choice for cropping options in Picasa 3 is "Add custom aspect ratio", enter 5 and 7 into the boxes and that adds a new cropping option to the drop down list, select that and the cropping tool is now 5:7.

You can resize the whole image to that ratio, or any part of it.

When you select "print" now it asks you to confirm the print size and prints the 5*7 aspect at the print size requested.

[Technical Ben]

It is easy in Photoshop elements (the full Photoshop is NOT attainable for the home user at £500 a pop).
However, you do need to know which button to use. It has a "crop" button. You select the area with it, press "ok" and then print the image. If you do not save the end result, the picture will all still be there.