Windows freeware to lock in a 3: or 4:3 aspect ratio for cropping
 

Do you know of Windows freeware that has the option to easily lock in a 3:2
or 4:3 aspect ratio for cropping?

I often create DIYs where it's nice to keep the cropped close photos at a
standard aspect ratio of what most smartphones use, which seems to be 4:3,
or to that of most 35mm cameras which seems to be 3:2 aspect ratio
https://photo.stackexchange.com/ques...n-aspect-ratio

I generally crop in Irfanview because it's so very fast & super easy
(click, click, crop), but there is no way to lock the aspect ratio for that
crop to 4:3 in Irfanview, nor in Pinta, MS Paint, or Paint 3D freeware.

Microsoft Photos has an aspect ratio lock, but it's not easy to use as the
image is blacked out except for the crop area, where you slide the
underlying image about to crop.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/...ard0131bb4.jpg

Do you know of Windows freeware that has the option to easily lock in a 3:2
or 4:3 aspect ratio for cropping?

Windows freeware to lock in a 3: or 4:3 aspect ratio for cropping
 

"ultred ragnusen" wrote

| Do you know of Windows freeware that has the option to easily lock in a
3:2
| or 4:3 aspect ratio for cropping?

This may or may not serve. It's not free, but you can
use it for free if you don't mind a startup nag:

https://www.jsware.net/jsware/pprep.php5

I wrote it mainly for a friend who was taking a lot
of photos and wanted to be able to send them out
for printing at specific ratios, for framing or for
small photo prints of things like 100 vacation
photos. It will batch crop to any ratio, doing an
entire folder full. Of course, you don't always
want to crop the same area, but for large numbers
of images this will do it quickly and easily, and in
most cases the crop will be fine. You can also pick
the orientation. (Crop from center or a specific
corner.) If you're picky about th exact crop area on
every image then you probably want a fullscale
graphic editor.

This is designed to be simple, quick cropping and
resizing, while retaining the best possible image
quality when desired. (Crop a JPG and you'll
lose some quality, but you can minimize the
loss, or avoid it by saving as BMP.)

Windows freeware to lock in a 3: or 4:3 aspect ratio for cropping
 

In article , Mayayana
wrote:


This is designed to be simple, quick cropping and
resizing, while retaining the best possible image
quality when desired. (Crop a JPG and you'll
lose some quality,

not when it's a lossless or non-destructive crop.

but you can minimize the
loss, or avoid it by saving as BMP.)

and drastically increase its size.

Windows freeware to lock in a 3: or 4:3 aspect ratio for cropping
 

On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 20:50:48 -0500, nospam wrote:
This is designed to be simple, quick cropping and
resizing, while retaining the best possible image
quality when desired. (Crop a JPG and you'll
lose some quality,

not when it's a lossless or non-destructive crop.

That's true for lossless. But the cropping itself is always destructive.

but you can minimize the
loss, or avoid it by saving as BMP.)

and drastically increase its size.

IMO, BMP should only be used when a software doesn't support a better image
format. How it stores 24bpp image pixels is unacceptably wasteful.

Windows freeware to lock in a 3: or 4:3 aspect ratio for cropping
 

In article , JJ
wrote:

This is designed to be simple, quick cropping and
resizing, while retaining the best possible image
quality when desired. (Crop a JPG and you'll
lose some quality,

not when it's a lossless or non-destructive crop.

That's true for lossless. But the cropping itself is always destructive.

no it isn't.

everything lightroom is non-destructive, including cropping. you can
un-crop and/or re-crop at a later time.

in photoshop, uncheck delete cropped pixels:
https://pe-images.s3.amazonaws.com/p...and-straighten
/non-destructive-crop/photoshop-delete-cropped-pixels-uncheck.png

but you can minimize the
loss, or avoid it by saving as BMP.)

and drastically increase its size.

IMO, BMP should only be used when a software doesn't support a better image
format. How it stores 24bpp image pixels is unacceptably wasteful.

bmp is obsolete.

Windows freeware to lock in a 3: or 4:3 aspect ratio for cropping
 

"JJ" wrote

| IMO, BMP should only be used when a software doesn't support a better
image
| format. How it stores 24bpp image pixels is unacceptably wasteful.

It depends on the situation. A BMP *is* the image.
You can compress it as a TIF if you don't want to use
the space, but the format is not wasteful. It's just
not compressed. It's what all other formats decompress
to. It's what gets displayed onscreen. It's the actual
image data of a raster image. Surely you knew that?

A BMP is *exactly* that. Aside from something like 22
bytes of header data, it's no more and no less than
the record of the color of each pixel in the image grid
of the image. It's what any graphic editor actually
works with. You open an image, it's converted
to a device independent bitmap, you edit it, then
it's saved out again as whatever. There's no such
thing as editing a TIF, GIF, PNG, JPG, etc. Those are
just storage methods with different pros and cons.
They're all storing a bitmap. (PNG and GIF can also
offer transparency, but it's still a bitmap that's stored.
The transparency is created by data that defines how
the image gets displayed.)

I suppose you could save as PNG, but neither TIF
nor PNG is remarkable compression. JPG only exists
because it has very good compression, it's royalty
free, and it's cross-platform. The quality is poor, but
it doesn't matter so much for web graphics and
photos of trivia sent between iPhones. It's not
a format for storing photos. Similarly with GIF: It's
handy for creating small files and it's cross-platform,
but it's lossy insofar as it reduces an image to 8-bit
color.

I sometimes save to TIF, but mostly I save as BMP
if I expect to work on an image. I have plenty of room
on disk. If ultred is going to print the images it may
not matter much. But if he's going to do further editing
there's no sense working in a lossy format just to save
space. That's why I designed for JPG and BMP -- One
for small-size images where quality isn't critical and
one for serious image editing.

Windows freeware to lock in a 3: or 4:3 aspect ratio for cropping
 

In article ,
RichA wrote:


4:3 IS the superior and more useful crop ratio. Always has been.

nope.

it depends on the subject.

there is no single best aspect ratio for all situations.

Windows freeware to lock in a 3: or 4:3 aspect ratio for cropping
 

In article , Mayayana
wrote:

| IMO, BMP should only be used when a software doesn't support a better
image
| format. How it stores 24bpp image pixels is unacceptably wasteful.

It depends on the situation. A BMP *is* the image.

nope. a bmp is a representation of an image.

You can compress it as a TIF if you don't want to use
the space, but the format is not wasteful. It's just
not compressed.

in other words, wasteful.

It's what all other formats decompress
to.

false.

It's what gets displayed onscreen.

also false.

It's the actual
image data of a raster image. Surely you knew that?

given that it too is false, why would he?




I suppose you could save as PNG, but neither TIF
nor PNG is remarkable compression. JPG only exists
because it has very good compression, it's royalty
free, and it's cross-platform. The quality is poor, but
it doesn't matter so much for web graphics and
photos of trivia sent between iPhones. It's not
a format for storing photos.

nonsense.

a high quality jpeg is visually indistinguishable from an uncompressed
original (easy to prove).

a low quality jpeg looks like crap, but that's an intentional choice
made by the user, not a flaw in the format, and something that is
rarely, if ever done.

jpeg works quite well for storing photos if raw is not an option. there
is also the issue that a given raw format might not be readable at some
point in the future, whereas jpeg always will be.

Similarly with GIF: It's
handy for creating small files and it's cross-platform,
but it's lossy insofar as it reduces an image to 8-bit
color.

that part is (mostly) true. 8 bit colour is not an issue if the gif is
a graphic and not necessarily an issue for photos.

gifs are also useful for animations or short video clips. you can find
many of those at https://giphy.com.

Windows freeware to lock in a 3: or 4:3 aspect ratio for cropping
 

RichA wrote:
On Saturday, 17 February 2018 19:00:59 UTC-5, ultred ragnusen wrote:
Do you know of Windows freeware that has the option to easily lock in a 3:2
or 4:3 aspect ratio for cropping?

I often create DIYs where it's nice to keep the cropped close photos at a
standard aspect ratio of what most smartphones use, which seems to be 4:3,
or to that of most 35mm cameras which seems to be 3:2 aspect ratio
https://photo.stackexchange.com/ques...n-aspect-ratio

I generally crop in Irfanview because it's so very fast & super easy
(click, click, crop), but there is no way to lock the aspect ratio for that
crop to 4:3 in Irfanview, nor in Pinta, MS Paint, or Paint 3D freeware.

Microsoft Photos has an aspect ratio lock, but it's not easy to use as the
image is blacked out except for the crop area, where you slide the
underlying image about to crop.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/...ard0131bb4.jpg

Do you know of Windows freeware that has the option to easily lock in a 3:2
or 4:3 aspect ratio for cropping?

4:3 IS the superior and more useful crop ratio. Always has been.


Why do you believe 4:3 is in anyway superior to any other crop ratio?

Try 9:16 on a wide aspect ratio display, or for panos. Then there is the
option of shooting native 3:2, or 1:1 in-camera. All work well for their
particular intent, composition, and/or purpose.

--
Regards,
Savageduck

Windows freeware to lock in a 3: or 4:3 aspect ratio for cropping
 

On 2018-02-18 06:29:24 +0000, Savageduck said:

RichA wrote:
On Saturday, 17 February 2018 19:00:59 UTC-5, ultred ragnusen wrote:
Do you know of Windows freeware that has the option to easily lock in a 3:2
or 4:3 aspect ratio for cropping?

I often create DIYs where it's nice to keep the cropped close photos at a
standard aspect ratio of what most smartphones use, which seems to be 4:3,
or to that of most 35mm cameras which seems to be 3:2 aspect ratio
https://photo.stackexchange.com/ques...n-aspect-ratio

I generally crop in Irfanview because it's so very fast & super easy
(click, click, crop), but there is no way to lock the aspect ratio for that
crop to 4:3 in Irfanview, nor in Pinta, MS Paint, or Paint 3D freeware.

Microsoft Photos has an aspect ratio lock, but it's not easy to use as the
image is blacked out except for the crop area, where you slide the
underlying image about to crop.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/...ard0131bb4.jpg

Do you know of Windows freeware that has the option to easily lock in a 3:2
or 4:3 aspect ratio for cropping?

4:3 IS the superior and more useful crop ratio. Always has been.


Why do you believe 4:3 is in anyway superior to any other crop ratio?

Try 9:16 on a wide aspect ratio display, or for panos. Then there is the
option of shooting native 3:2, or 1:1 in-camera. All work well for their
particular intent, composition, and/or purpose.

Looking yourself into a single crop ratio is volunteering into silly
dogma! :-ppp
--
teleportation kills