Re: filmscanners: OK, Vuescan is driving me nuts

["Richard N. Moyer" <dickmoyer@mail.earthlink.net>]

You definitely can reset the crop outline in Photoshop. Or alter it. Easily.

In contrast with PSP, or some other programs, what you do in PS is:

1 Use Marquee tool to draw box outline. It can also be a circle, etc.

2.To add to the box, hold shift key down (don't have to) and redraw 
box, or just redraw the box. Curser defaults to "+", so the default 
is to add to the box. If you want to subtract in any way from the 
box, hold shift and Option key down (at least on the Mac). Box will 
redraw to smaller box. If you hold down just the Option key when 
redrawing the marquee outline, the curser shows a "-" (minus), 
meaning that wnen you crop, the contents of that outline will be 
deleted from the image, leaving you with a "frame" section of the 
image. Option/Shift gets you a smaller box; the curser contains 
neither a "+", or  "-".

3. Alternately, to resize the marquee outline arbitrarily, any side, 
execute "transform selection" from the Select Menu. You have other 
choices as well to modify the marquee outline, such precise 
grow/shrink.

4. After selecting "Transform Selection", you have handles at corners 
to rotate, pull/push, you can grab any side to pull/push, and in 
general do anything you want to modify the marquee outline. Extremely 
userful when attempting to "level" an image with the horizon. When 
done, push enter

5. And, you can go back to any stage at any time to redo (if not 
saved and reopened)  by looking over the "history".. (That is 
something I would like PS to incorporate - saved history - but it 
would significantly increase the size of the file)

Nope. Photoshop didn't leave anything out. And you can do anything of 
the above in 8 or 16 bit mode, plus use the marquee outlines in a 
variety of other ways, such as have more than one marquee; e.g. one 
box inside the other - for a cutout frame, for example, Or two 
independent marquees. Or the marquee outline can become a mask, which 
can be saved. On and on.

>From: "Rob Geraghty" <harper@wordweb.com>
>I wish Photoshop had a crop tool like the one in PSP - the problem with
>the normal rectangular selection is that you can't drag the sides once
>you've
>placed it.  That means you have to guess the starting corner very well or
>you'll
>lose some image when you crop.  In PSP you can roughly set the crop
>outline, then zoom to 1:1 to adjust it.  PSP won't edit in 16bit mode
>however. :(
>The behaviour of the PSP crop tool is *exactly* how the Vuescan crop
>outline should work - it nearly does, but not as predictably.
>
>Rob