Resizing 11x14 image to 4x6 postcard size

[Ametea]

Hello,

I am having a lot of trouble resizing an image of 11x14 (10.837x13.907) to 4x6 postcard. I want to do a bleed, so it may have to be a bit bigger than 4x6, more like 4.25x6.25; however, when I resize with constrain proportions with the width of 4" the length is too small at 5.138" or if I change the length to 6", it is too wide at 4.671". I can resize to 4x6 without constrain proportions, but the images becomes distorted and stretched out. Cropping and making an extra border to balance out the proportions is not an option. Attached below are the original image of 11 x14 and the 4x6 image, that comes out distorted. Any suggestions on how I can resize this image from 11 x 14 to 4x6? I am using CS3 on a MAC using Snow Leopard. Thank you.

 

[MikeMc]

mine came out a tad bigger than 4x6...will this work?

did you resample?




I did this from your posted image, which I suspect was resized by the forums software...


TOM MANN.....To the white courtesy phone please....

 

[Ametea]

Hi MikeMc,

I did tried resampling. I actually checked and unchecked all three boxes for scale styles, constrain proportions and resample images. How much bigger is your adjusted image? Because when I adjusted my image from Image Size, my images either comes out to be 4.643 x 6 or 4 x 5.169, neither will fit into my 4x6 postcard template. How did you adjust the image and do you remember the dimensions? I need the image to fit into the postcard template below.View attachment A6 postcard template.pdfView attachment A6 postcard template.pdf

 

[Tom Mann]

Something has to give if you need to morph something with one aspect ratio (11 by 14 = 1.27 ) into a different aspect ratio (4 by 6 = 1.5). You really don't have a choice in this. You outlined the two standard options:

1. Don't constrain the proportions and the entire image becomes squished horizontally.

2a and b. Crop it to the desired aspect ratio and you either have to throw away something, or have to introduce extra blank edge(s).

There are only two suggestions I can offer that you haven't really considered:

a) Introduce a border that goes all the way around the image. It doesn't have to be plain black or white -- it could be made from nested rectangular or other geometric key lines, ornate or whatever you want. Obviously, the border will have a different thickness in the two directions. Make it look like an intentional part of the design of the card. This approach gives you the option of introducing no aspect ratio distortion whatsoever.

b) In one of the recent releases of PS, Adobe introduced a technique called content-aware scaling. Basically, if you need to reduce the width of an image, it finds a bunch of thin, more-or-less vertical wiggly paths through the image that have the least amount of detail along each path, and then the algorithm starts removing those paths from the image and smoothly joining up the pieces on either side of each path. This will make the image narrower.

This works great in certain cases, not so well in others. For example, if you have a bride and groom standing a bit too far apart on a more or less featureless beach, the algorithm will selectively remove parts of the beach in between the two subjects but not change the subjects in any way. Said differently, it changes the aspect ratio in some areas of the image, but not in others. In cases like this, this algorithm can be a god-send.

On the other hand, if the image is dense with detail, there may not be any paths through the image suitable for such pruning, whether automated by an algorithm such as this, or done manually. Unfortunately, your image falls into this category. In this case, the automated algorithm will reduce the width as much as you asked for, but it will distort some areas of the image. One can command the algorithm not to touch certain areas (eg, skin tones).

Below is what you get if you apply this algorithm to your image, telling it not to touch skin tones or either the left or right edges (where the hearts are). The distortions throughout the remainder of image are obvious, but perhaps, even with these distortions, the overall look might be more acceptable than any of the other choices you have.

HTH,

Tom M



PS - At the risk of stating the obvious, one always has the option of combining some of the above techniques or "meeting halfway" with techniques by doing things like changing the aspect ratio by less than the fully required amount and then cropping away the little that remains.