You've seen them--photos that have been quartered, framed, and hung on the wall a small distance apart from each other. It's an artistic way to present a photo, and it also allows you to present an image a great deal larger than your inkjet printer allows you to print. For example, you can turn a photo like this into something like this.
Not every picture will look good quartered. You won't want to try this on a picture in which you'd end up slicing someone's face in half between frames, for instance. The picture should also be pretty big to begin with--6 megapixels or more if you want to turn it into four 5-by-7-inch prints. If you can start with an even larger image, you might be able to make four 8-by-10s.
Want to give it a try? Find your own photo that you can slice up, or save this image to your hard drive. Open the file in your favorite image editor (in this example, I'm using Corel's Paint Shop Pro). First, we need to crop it to the same overall proportion as the print size that we want each quarter to be. If you're going to make four 5-by-7s, for instance, crop the image to 5-by-7 proportion. Remember that the cropping process doesn't make it 5 by 7 inches, it just gives the image a 5-by-7 aspect ratio.
Click the Crop tool; in Paint Shop Pro it's the third button from the top in the tool palette on the left side of the screen. Make sure the Tool Options palette is visible at the top of the screen. If not, toggle it on by choosing
In this example, let's make four 8-by-10 inch prints. Of course, since the sample image is small to begin with, I don't recommend printing and framing this proect--it will print very grainy and blurry.
Since this picture has a vertical layout, click the Presets menu in Tool Options and choose
Since we'll be making four versions of this photo, now it's time to create four different image files. Copy the picture to the clipboard by choosing
Now for the fun part. Click the Crop tool again, set the preset to "8 X 10 in Vertical," and look for the "Right" and "Bottom" boxes on the right side of Tool Options. The numbers indicate the width and height of the crop box. Since we want to make four identical crops, we'll divide one of these numbers in half. Choose the number that divides most evenly. You'll see the crop box resize to the upper left corner. Double-click inside the crop frame or select the check box to accept the crop. If this were your actual project, you would save or print this picture and then get it out of the way to work on the next quarter.
In the next image, click the crop tool and set the preset to "8 X 10 in Vertical." Repeat the division procedure we employed above. Drag the crop frame to the upper right quadrant of the image. If you drag it past the edge of the image, it'll automatically snap to the upper right corner, which is exactly what we want.
Accept the crop. Keep this crop and move on to the remaining images, using the same process to do the lower left and right quadrants. If you print out each final image, you'll have something like this.
If you were to hang these prints on the wall, you'd want to position the frames about an inch apart from each other.
If you work in the business world, you probably already know that Adobe's Portable Document Format is a nearly universal way to share all kinds of documents. Why? Mainly because PDF is convenient; you can transform text documents, presentations, business graphics, brochures, and all kinds of other documents into a common format that anyone with Adobe Reader can view. The format also ensures that everyone sees documents the same way, regardless of whether you're looking at it on a PC, Mac, or PDA. And finally, PDFs are fairly tamperproof. Yes, it's possible to crack open a PDF file and change it, but it's not easy--and most people don't have the necessary software.
So the obvious question is "Can I create a PDF with my digital photos?" You sure can: You can create a PDF with photos, captions, and any other elements you like. All you need is PDF Redirect, which lets you create a PDF file just by clicking the Print button in any Windows program--Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, your favorite image editor, and more. It's really that simple, and the end result looks and works like any PDF file created by Adobe's own software.
PDF Redirect is free (though a more elaborate version, PDF Redirect Pro, costs $20) and you can get a copy from EXP Systems.
Q&A: What Other Photo Editors Can I Use With This Newsletter?In your newsletter, you use Paint Shop Pro. Would Paint Shop Pro Studio work just as well to accomplish the same things?
As a general rule, James, you can use the techniques I discuss in almost any mainstream image editing program--Paint Shop Pro Studio, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Microsoft Digital Image Suite, or Ulead PhotoImpact.
The only trouble you'll run into--aside from the fact that the specific menu commands and feature names vary from one program to another--is when you're using a program that's missing features we use in a given week. I sometimes use levels and curves to edit photos, for instance, and you'll find that Paint Shop Pro Studio lacks those features. So occasionally, you'll run into a project that's impossible to do in Studio. That said, I think that's the exception to the rule. I get e-mail from readers every week citing success with the newsletter even though they use a different image editing program.
Hot Pic of the WeekGet published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $15 and $50.
Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.
About this week's photo, Daniel says: "This photo is an experiment in infrared photography. I used a Hoya infrared filter to achieve the effect on the plants, and then I then edited the photo in Photoshop to give the road that distinctive color."
Dave Johnson
