# How to reduce/resize a photo while constraining to 5"x7"



## Cuzzinbrucie (Dec 18, 2016)

I have about 10 photos that came from Google street view of all the homes I have lived in. They are larger than a 5x7 crop. Library view says they are 1044x614. Cropping to 5x7 would cut off off information I need from the photo. I expect Develop/Transform/Scale is one tool I can use. When sliding the control, how do I know when I am just within 5x7 dimensions?


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## clee01l (Dec 19, 2016)

This is not really the tool to use because of the resulting distortion.  (The 614 pixel side would be stretched to 745pixels) You can fit the 1044X614 image inside a 5X7 aspect ratio but to do so will result in a 65 pixel white margin on both sides of the 614 pixel side.  
Why do you need 5X7?  What are you trying to achieve?  Are you wanting to print?  FWIW, 1044X614 is a very non standard aspect ratio.


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## Jimmsp (Dec 19, 2016)

I would go back to how you got them - and do it again. My first assumption is that you found the house on Google street view, then did a screen capture. I would redo that, being sure that when you do a screen capture, you capture more than you want. I would then save that as a jpeg, import it into LR, then crop at 5x7 to capture all that you want. I would guess from what you say that a 5x7 crop will have a bit more than you want - but you can't have everything.


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## Cuzzinbrucie (Dec 19, 2016)

clee01l said:


> This is not really the tool to use because of the resulting distortion.  (The 614 pixel side would be stretched to 745pixels) You can fit the 1044X614 image inside a 5X7 aspect ratio but to do so will result in a 65 pixel white margin on both sides of the 614 pixel side.
> Why do you need 5X7?  What are you trying to achieve?  Are you wanting to print?  FWIW, 1044X614 is a very non standard aspect ratio.


I decided not to crop them as I don't actually need 5x7 dimensions I'm just used to cropping everything to 5x7 in case I decide to print it later. Probably due to my inexperience with handling digital images. Thanks.


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## clee01l (Dec 19, 2016)

A good decision.     If I crop for print, it is often 8.5X11 (borderless printing) But I also crop to print 13"X19" and 13"X26".  A crop for screen might be 16:9 for viewing on a TV at 1080p.   IOW, I only crop when there is a destination media that needs a crop.


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## msmack (Dec 31, 2016)

What does Develop/Transform/Scale mean, as mentioned in the original post.


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## Tony Jay (Dec 31, 2016)

msmack said:


> What does Develop/Transform/Scale mean, as mentioned in the original post.


The best way to answer this one is to suggest that you take an image, of a building would be best, and play with those sliders yourself.
When you have finished just set all the sliders back to their defaults.
No harm will come to your images!

Tony Jay


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 31, 2016)

msmack said:


> What does Develop/Transform/Scale mean, as mentioned in the original post.



Try this: 
1: Export your image (as jpeg or tiff) without resizing during export
2: Set the Scale to 50 (keeping 'Constrain Crop' checked)
3: Export your image again without resizing during export
Compare the pixel dimensions of both images. Now you know what it does.

Another nice demonstration is to scale down an image while 'Constrain Crop' is _unchecked_... That provides a way of exporting an image with a white border (but it only works on images that are not transformed in any other way, such as straightening the horizon, perspective corrections or even a lens correction profile applied).

Scale is more or less a legacy slider because we have X Offset and Y Offset now. Before we had these other two sliders, you could get into a situation where the top of a building would be chopped off after you applied perspective corrections. By scaling down the image a bit, that top would come into view again. Then you could use the crop tool to cut off the slanted edges. This is no longer necessary, because you can now apply a negative Y Offset in this situation.


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