On Saturday, January 28, 2006 3:08 PM [GMT+1=CET], Jeff C wrote:

[..]

Is there a way to quickly chop up the file into the 3 individual pics, and to get them squared up (vertically and horizontally 90 degrees)? My goal is to have no white space (the background/scanner's white sheet/ the white background that separates the pictures from each other) to be removed when the editing is done.

I'm unclear if you want to turn them into three individual images, or just straighten them within the one image.

If you want individual ones, use the crop tool. That will keep only the image you cropped, and it won't be square. Then use the rotate tool. Probably easiest is to select "Backward (corrective)", and "Preview... Grid". Then click on the image. It should show a grid that you can rotate. Rotate it so that the grid lines up with the (non-square) edges of the photo. Click "Rotate" on the dialog box to do the rotation of the image.

You may need to anchor that change.

Bob Long

Please see my file at
http://snowflame.zoto.com/img/original/ddfd1b906271512faa623423632d3554.jpg

(I have covered up people's faces for privacy's sake.)

* Jeff C [01-28-06 09:20]:

Yes, this is the rough idea. But: 1. What if the picture is not aligned vertically and horizontally?

Rotate after crop, then crop again.

2. Doesn't this mean that your hand that's holding the mouse has to be super-precise in making a rectangular section to NOT include the white background space?

If your mouse control is not satisfactory, use what we had before mice, the keyboard to change the +/- degrees of rotation.

* Jeff C [01-28-06 09:38]:

Yes, I'd like to turn them into 3 individual images.

Can't Fuzzy Select (Magic Wand icon; Select Contiguous Region), Select Region By Color, or Scissors (Select Shape From Image) do something better than the regular rectangular selection?

crop -> rotate -> crop again

Because the Rectangular Section won't give an exact crop. How can you get ONLY the picture cropped and NO white background space? I would like only the picture included in the image, and no white frame around it.

above

* Jeff C [01-28-06 10:42]:

THanks for your input. In regards to mouse-holding, I was referring to when you are doing the crop. I want a border-less image. In other words, no white space on the periphery of the image. How can we capture only the image, and nothing else?

If you have the image squared up, the crop area has four corners. Two opposite corners move the entire selection and the other two make the area larger or smaller.

The dialog box allows moving the selection corners with the keyboard by changing the values a pixel at a time. Is that fine enough?

If you still have white-space, you have not straightened the area of interest sufficiently with the rotate tool, or your image is *not* rectangular. If that *is* the case, use one of the other selection tools and cut/paste-as-new.

Or I fail to understand your problem.

* Jeff C [01-28-06 11:06]:

I think we have a misunderstanding. Let's say that the image is now made perfectly aligned... vertically and horizontally at 90 degrees. My question is how can we crop this now-perfectly-aligned picture so that we don't include any white space?

crop

utilize the dialog box and change the values +/- one pixel at a time

isn't that a fine enough adjustment for you to align your selection?

On Sunday, January 29, 2006 2:05 AM [GMT+1=CET], Jeff C wrote:

[...]

crop -> rotate -> crop again

Because the Rectangular Section won't give an exact crop. How can you get ONLY the picture cropped and NO white background space? I would like only the picture included in the image, and no white frame around it.

above

I think we have a misunderstanding. Let's say that the image is now made perfectly aligned... vertically and horizontally at 90 degrees. My question is how can we crop this now-perfectly-aligned picture so that we don't include any white space?

As has been said, crop again to exclude any white area. However, I notice your original pictures that you have scanned have rounded corners. Are you wanting to retain that rounded corner effect? If not, then simply crop the image smaller so you have a rectangular area with no white. If you do want a rounded corner effect, then you'll have to have a background of some sort, be it white or some other colour. Or, you could make it transparent. You can do that by adding a transparent layer, and then using, say, the fuzzy select tool to select the unwanted background, then deleting that selection. But then you have to consider how you ultimately want to use the image, as not all file types handle transparency.

Bob Long

On Sun, Jan 29, 2006 at 11:23:04AM +0900, Jeff C wrote:

Carol wrote:

your belief will not make this to be the truth. rotating that image will lose some of the quality of the original -- no matter what the application you use!

Ok. So does "lossless rotation" apply only to rotations of every 90 degrees, then?

it makes sense, doesn't it?

i have some experience with this. one nicely aligned image per scan takes much less time than many images per scan -- unless you have time restricted access to the scanner or concerns about the amount of electricity you are using.

even with careful alignment you might need to rotate. the loss isn't necessarily in the image matter -- it is really in the time it takes to do all of the pixel adjustments. you edited this portion out of that original email though....

carol