Crop An Image

Project: Crop an Image

This project has two sections. Each section will focus on how to rid the photograph of unwanted elements in a picture. First I will show you how to crop an image. Next we will get rid of an element in the picture by erasing it and copying over it.

This first picture shows an image that has some unwanted elements. First there is a tree on the right of the picture. We will crop this out, using the crop tool (the one pictured) and select the area you want to keep.

Now click and select an area of the image that you want to keep. Notice in the picture below how the highlighted area is the part of the photo that will be kept.

This box shows the Crop and Resize information. Here you could crop or resize a photograph to a desired size.

After the Crop/Resize button is selected a user can look at the Gimp Information Bar and select Crop or Resize. Other options are to just Crop or Resize the Current layer, Allow Enlarging or keep aspect ratio. When resizing it is a good idea to Select the box to Keep aspect ratio. This will keep the photograph from being distorted.

See now how the picture has been cropped so that the tree no longer blocks part of the image.

There are many times when a photograph is taken that unwanted elements appear in the picture. Many times these elements appear in an area of the photograph that cannot be cropped out. This type of problem can many times be solved by taking parts of the picture from around the problem area and using those parts to replace the problem area in the picture. Here is a way to do that.

Using the pattern tool (the one pictured) a user can use a part of the image and pattern it into another part of the image.

After the Pattern Tool is selected a Gimp Information Tool bar appears below the Gimp Tool bar. First select a brush by clicking on the brush selection box. For this example we picked a hard circle brush size 11. Depending on how you want to blend the new pattern in, a user could select different brushes. We picked size 11 for this brush because it was an appropriate brush size for the picture. If you go too big it will be obvious that the picture has been altered.

The Opacity slider is used to decide how many pixels will fill each pattern tool circle.

The Source selection tool is used to select the source of the pattern to be copied.

For this project use the selections made in the picture to the right.

Next Zoom in on the island or the element in the picture you would like to edit. Get as close as possible. In some cases you may have to edit the photograph and the scroll.

Next do a Control + Click to select an area you would like to copy your pattern from. Let go of the Control button and click on part of the photograph. You will notice how the pattern is covering the parts you click on. Do this until you get the desired results. Make sure and play with different size brushes and opacity to get the results you want. Try and match colors by going horizontal from the picture element you want to pattern over. This will allow the colors to match up better.

This is a tough example because the water is different colors. But I wanted you as a user to understand the use of opacity and how the size of the paintbrush can effect the picture. With this picture have patience and take your time to figure out how it will look. Zoom out several times and see how it is all blending in; using different size brushes will also help.