Cropping images for the club digital projection system.

In this workshop I will show you how to crop Landscape and Portrait images so they “best fit" the screen of the club digital projection system.

Please note: It would be beneficial to read the complete workshop before you attempt to follow the procedure. If you would like a print out to read, please follow the links at the end of this workshop.

Note: If your Images are not sized correctly for the club projection system, there is a high risk that your image will be degraded when projected.
It is also recommended that your images are flattened before you proceed with this workshop. Go to Layers>Flatten Image.

The full screen size for the club system is 1024 pixels width by 768 pixels high.

Cropping a landscape image.
Step 1: Open the landscape image you would like to crop. Locate and select your crop tool.

Step 2: In the crop options type 1024px in the width box, leave the height blank (do not type 0, the crop tool will not work). Leave the resolution blank and the resolution type set to pixels/inch.

Step 3: Next click in the top left hand corner of your image, by holding down the mouse button, drag your cursor to the bottom right hand corner, then let go of the mouse button.
You should now see the crop selection around your image, also you will see 8 small squares, these are known as handles. If at this point you wish to use only part of the image or would like to change the shape of the crop, click and drag these handles to recompose your image. This will still resize your image to 1024 pixels width because that is the size we entered into the crop tool options in step 2.
Once you are happy with either your full frame crop or your recomposed crop, click on the tick icon on the right hand side of the crop tool options (see below), or hit the enter key on your keyboard. This will apply the crop.

Step 4: Check your image size by going to, Image>Image Size. The image size box will appear. You will now see that your landscape image has a width of 1024 pixels, therefore this image will fit the full width of the club digital projection system. Ignore all the other information in this box apart from the image height. If the image height is below 768 pixels this image is acceptable. Click OK to close image size box. If your image height is above 768 pixels please read the section below on “Over sized images”.

Step 5: Next, follow the sections towards the end of this workshop on “Filling unused areas of the projection space”, “Assigning the sRGB colour space” and “Saving your image as a JPEG file”.

Over sized images
In step 4 of “cropping a landscape image” I spoke about the landscape image height going above 768 pixels. If your landscape image size height was over 768 pixels this means your image is more a square format, rather than a landscape. In this case you will need to undo the crop by going to Edit>Undo Crop, or Ctrl Z on your keyboard. Then follow the lesson on “Cropping a portrait image”, (next page).