Tutorial: Cropping Your Pictures

Sometimes the pictures you want to post in your gallery or use as images for your online store need to be cropped. This tutorial will discuss how to crop your pictures using the powerful free Google image software Picasa.

First download Picasa directly from our server by clicking here. You can also obtain Picasa directly from Google's servers by clicking here.

Once you have downloaded and installed the program you can proceed by running the software.

Picasa will automatically scan your entire hard-drive for picture files and display them in an easy to use layout. The folders on your hard-drive that contain pictures will be displayed along the right side and then the pictures will be in the main window of the program.

 

Select the folder that has the files you wish to crop. If you can't see your folder click on 'File' in the menu bar and select 'Add Folder to Picasa'.

 

 

You will then see all the pictures in that folder in the main window. Double-click the image you wish to crop.

 

 

 

 

Next, click on the 'Crop' button to begin cropping the picture.

 

 

 

 

 

The 'Crop Picture' frame will come up and you can just leave the cropping method set to manual. This will allow you to highlight the exact portion of the picture you want to crop out.

 

 

 

 

 

Click and drag the mouse to highlight the part of the picture that you want to crop it down to.

 

 

 

 

Click the 'Apply' button in the 'Crop Picture' frame to save your changes.

 

 

 

Then click the 'Back to Library' button (above the information frame) to go back to the main screen. The picture you just edited will be in the Picture tray (bottom left part of the screen) so just click the 'Export' button (bottom right part of screen) to save your changes to a new image file.

 

 

 

 

 

In the 'Export to Folder' dialog box choose the folder you want your newly cropped files to be saved in. If your image is large you can also resize it for faster loading. We recommend a maximum-sized image of 640x480 for normal web use. If your image is already a good size then just choose 'Use Original Size'.

 

 

Click 'Ok' to complete the process and save your cropped file to the folder your specified.

 

And that's it! You are ready to use your newly cropped picture.

 

CROPPING CATALOG IMAGES FOR YOUR ONLINE STORE

The same process outlined above can be used to crop your scanned catalog pages. Just select your scanned catalog image and crop the pictures for each of your items as outlined above. Then just add your new products via your online store's control panel and use your newly cropped images.