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Dear PC Doctor,
I took a picture with my digital camera and I would like to upload it to Facebook. However, I would like to be able to crop a part of the image out so it looks better. I have Paint on my computer but I could not figure out how to do it easily.
Also, is there something like Photoshop out there that I could download for free so I could also do more to edit my photos? Paint seems very limited.
Terry
Dear Terry,
Microsoft Paint used to be a very crude tool for manipulating photos, but recently it has become quite good and pretty easy to use once you get the hang of it!
First, open up Paint and then open the image you wish to crop. Next, click the “Select” button in the top toolbar. The icon for it looks like a dotted box. Using your mouse, click and drag to create an outline on top of your picture. Be careful: you cannot manipulate the box after you have drawn it, it will actually stretch your selection. If you mess up, just click outside the picture to reset it and try again until it looks right. Right next to the Select tool in the tool bar is the Crop button. Click that to crop your image of what is outside your selection. Be aware that the crop tool will not be available until you actually have a selection in progress.
Click the File icon in the upper left corner if you are satisfied with your cropping and select “Save as”. Give it a name and save it to somewhere where you will be able to find it and then upload it to Facebook!
I would suggest checking out Picasa as a free simple photo editing software. It is incredibly easy to use so be careful you do not become too addicted to editing your photos! Check it out at www.picasa.google.com.
Good luck! PC Doctor
Until next time… happy computing!
Posted: to Athol Library News on Wed, Jan 30, 2013
Updated: Wed, Jan 30, 2013