Using PhotoFiltre to Edit Your Photographs

How to crop a photograph

Cropping photos is useful for trimming unwanted material from one or more edges of the image. For example, you may have a picture of yourself posing with your ex-girlfriend, and you wish to remove her from the photograph. Or you may desire to trim some of the background to put more emphasis on you. To crop a photo using PhotoFiltre, click and drag using your left mouse button to select the area that you wish to save. ("Click and drag" means this: put your mouse cursor at the top left corner of the area you wish to save. Click the left mouse button and hold it down as you drag the selection box to the bottom right of the desired image area, then release the left mouse button.) Then press SHIFT+CTRL+H on your keyboard (this means that you press and hold down the SHIFT key, the Control (CTRL) key, and the H key, then release them). If you make a mistake, select EDIT, then UNDO CROP.

How to resize a photograph

Click IMAGE, then IMAGE SIZE. A box pops up that shows the current image size and file size. Under NEW SIZE, type in the desired width of your image (typically 200 to 600 pixels). If the PRESERVE ASPECT RATIO checkbox is checked (it is by default), when you type in a new value for the width, the height will automatically change as it should. If your image is small, do not stretch it by increasing its width or height. That will make the image larger but more grainy and less attractive.

How to save a photograph

Click FILE, then SAVE AS. Choose a file name with lower-case letters (and numbers, if desired), but do not include any spaces or special characters. For the SAVE AS TYPE, select JPEG. Now click SAVE. A secondary box entitled JPEG COMPRESSION will appear. Use the compression slider to set the image quality. In general, JPEG settings of 25 to 75% give reasonable picture quality while minimizing the file size. (Tip: With JPEG images, higher % settings give better image quality but have larger file sizes — thus increasing the download time for people viewing your images. Some of them may have slow dial-up modems, so choosing the best JPEG picture quality is not advisable.) Now click OK.