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Constrained Selection in Paint Shop Pro

by kandyj


I have been a user of Paint Shop Pro long before I ever thought of owning a digital camera, likely before I ever heard of digital cameras! Due to the fact that all my extra money seems to go to my cameras and accessories, I hope to continue to use PSP for a long time and not invest hundreds of dollars in other programs that only duplicate most of the features I use in PSP.

One of my major complaints with PSP is the lack of a cropping feature that would size your images precisely to a set ratio such as 5*7 or 8*10 inches for framed photos. While trying to solve this problem with Paint Shop Pro 7, I ran across this freeware program that runs in PSP, so that I didn’t’ have to size an image in Thumbs Plus then finish the editing in PSP. It is a program that is called FotoCrop II and can be found and downloaded at http://www.guzewski.ca/fotocrop/

I will briefly describe how to use this program and you can go to the website listed above for more details. It is wonderfully simple and fast to use!!

Open up an image in PSP. Open FotoCrop II from your programs list. When you open up FotoCrop II, it will ask you to name the size you want to crop to and figures the appropriate selection ratio. It uses both European and American measurements, along with allowing you to set custom sizes, so it can be used by all of our ‘worldly’ photographers.


Click on the selection tool from your PSP menu bar. Make sure feather is set to “0”. Anti-alias can either be on or off, doesn’t make a difference.


Click and drag the rectangle over your image until you get the size you want. The selection area can be enlarged or reduced with your mouse, but continues to maintain the correct ratio for your selected size. When you release the mouse, you will see the resizing window flash briefly on your screen as it is setting the correct print area.

You can move the selection rectangle around on your image with the move tool. by holding down the right mouse button while you move your mouse to re-position it. Then do a shift-r or select “crop to selection” from the image menu in PSP.

When you are done with that image, and want to crop another without the tool, you can easily turn it off by hitting the minimize button.

Hope this helps!! As I noted, you may visit the developer’s website to get more details and can even contact the author for any questions.

Kandice Jones (kandyj in DPC)

Original Photo 8*10.8 inches	Tighter crop
Fullest crop	Medium Crop

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