Crop and resize with Digital Image Suite 2006
Published: December 19, 2005
Most pictures need a little work to get them just right. You can turn an average picture into a great one with two minor fixes—cropping or resizing the picture. With a digital photo-editing program, such as Microsoft Digital Image Suite 2006, you can complete these two common tasks easily and quickly.
Cropping your picture
By cropping a picture, you can change not only the focus or subject of the picture, but also the mood. You might be amazed at how you can transform a picture simply by cropping it.
Note
Before beginning any work on a picture, make a copy and do all of your work on that.
1. | In Digital Image Suite 2006 Editor, begin by opening the picture that you want to crop. |
2. | In the Common Tasks list, click the Format menu arrow, and then click Crop Canvas. 
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3. | The suggested crop region is displayed. If you want to change the cropped region, drag the cropping tool over the area of the picture that you want to keep. You can adjust your crop by dragging any of the rectangle's edges or corners (outlined in red). Click Done to apply the crop. 
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4. | On the File menu, click Save to save your cropped photo.
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Resizing your picture
Sometimes you might want to keep the entire photo, but you might want to change it to a different size. For example, you might have a picture that is 18 x 12 inches and you need the entire image in a 6 x 4-inch format for a project you're working on. Instead of cropping the photo, just resize it.
You need to view the entire picture for this task, so use the Zoom slider until you see the entire photo in the work area, if necessary.
You can change the size of a picture in three ways: picture size, pixel dimension, or resolution. For this example, we're going to resize the picture by changing the picture size. Don't forget to make a copy of your photo before you begin.
1. | In the Common Tasks menu, click the Format menu arrow, and then click Resize Image. 
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2. | Before you can change the picture size, you need to exclude one of the available resizing options to deactivate it. (Digital Image Suite 2006 allows only two resizing options to be activated at once.) Since we're using the Image size option, we need to exclude either Pixel dimensions or Resolution. Click the Pixel dimensions option to exclude it. 
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3. | In the Image size area, type a dimension into either the Width or Height field that corresponds to the size you want the picture to be. Depending on which dimension you provide, the other dimension will be determined automatically based on the size of your original photo. Click Done when finished. 
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4. | On the File menu, click Save to save your resized photo. |
Now your photo is cropped and resized in Digital Image Suite 2006.
 | Kleber Stephenson is Director of Seminars/Director of Windows Technologies for KW Media Group, Inc. He is the author of Windows XP Killer Tips (Pearson Education), Microsoft Office 2003 Killer Tips (New Riders Press), and Learn Windows XP for 5 Bucks (Peachpit Press), and is the co-author of The iTunes for Windows Book (Peachpit Press).
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