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Need an image editor

weddlec

weddlec

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 31, 2008
71
17
I switched to a mac 2 years ago and have yet to find what I am looking for. In Windows I exclusively used Microsoft Office Picture Manager. It could do the following
1. Rotate a picture to the .00 accuracy. Example Rotate it 59.17%. It would also rotate it live as you changed the number. This was great for leveling a scanned image for cropping.
2. Crop to the exact pixel using arrow keys. You could ball park it with the mouse, zoom in 400% and then crop to the exact pixel.

I cannot do this on a mac. Photoshop might be able to do it but it is way more heavy of a program than what I want. Preveiw can do a good crop, but it has to be done with the mouse only. Pixelmator is also no help.

Please any suggestions so I can finally get rid of my Boot Camp partition.
 
Thanks. I will check that out.

So Photoshop Elements can do all of those things? I thought you still had to crop with the mouse freehand.

And honestly, I am really looking for something other than a Photoshop product.
 
1. Rotate a picture to the .00 accuracy. Example Rotate it 59.17%. It would also rotate it live as you changed the number. This was great for leveling a scanned image for cropping.

I use the "Straighten" button in iPhoto, it also will rotate live, to level the horizon in photos, will go up to 10° plus or minus.


2. Crop to the exact pixel using arrow keys. You could ball park it with the mouse, zoom in 400% and then crop to the exact pixel.

In Preview when you the "Select" an area you will see the size as you drag the box. When you get the size you want, place your curser inside the box andt drag it to near the place you want, then use the arrow to move to the exact place.
 

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MisterMe said:
Use Photoshop Elements then.
Click to expand...

Alright, I spent some time with Photoshop Elements. It does neither thing. It will rotate to the hundredth percent (which I want) but it does not do it live. When it doesn't do a live rotate you have to go through trial and error which can take forever.

The cropping also does not work right. It is similar to what Preview does in the cropping function. You can fine tune the crop with the arrow keys, but it moves the entire crop box rather than just making 1 side of the crop box bigger or smaller.

Thank you for your ideas Pomeroy. I think that would work for the rotate (aka.straighten) The cropping is still flawed though.

I like Microsoft Office Picture Manager because you can do the entire workflow from 1 app. I scan a lot of photos and my workflow works as follows. 1. Scan in photo. 2. Rotate until the image is level (this is necessary for the crop to work properly). 3. Crop each side (top, bottom, left, right.) individually. It does all of this live and even has a live readout of your resolution as you change it. It is an awesome program, and I feel like an idiot having to go back to Windows every time I need to do a quick, precise image rotate/crop.

I just can't believe Mac doesn't have an equivalent. I have even tried using Wine to put that app on the Mac side, but it is integrated into Office. I wish MOPM was a part of Office for Mac.

Any further thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
 
weddlec said:
Alright, I spent some time with Photoshop Elements. It does neither thing. It will rotate to the hundredth percent (which I want) but it does not do it live. When it doesn't do a live rotate you have to go through trial and error which can take forever.

The cropping also does not work right. It is similar to what Preview does in the cropping function. You can fine tune the crop with the arrow keys, but it moves the entire crop box rather than just making 1 side of the crop box bigger or smaller.

Thank you for your ideas Pomeroy. I think that would work for the rotate (aka.straighten) The cropping is still flawed though.

I like Microsoft Office Picture Manager because you can do the entire workflow from 1 app. I scan a lot of photos and my workflow works as follows. 1. Scan in photo. 2. Rotate until the image is level (this is necessary for the crop to work properly). 3. Crop each side (top, bottom, left, right.) individually. It does all of this live and even has a live readout of your resolution as you change it. It is an awesome program, and I feel like an idiot having to go back to Windows every time I need to do a quick, precise image rotate/crop.

I just can't believe Mac doesn't have an equivalent. I have even tried using Wine to put that app on the Mac side, but it is integrated into Office. I wish MOPM was a part of Office for Mac.

Any further thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

You can resize each side (top, bottom, left, right.) individually in Preview. The arrow keys redefine the location of the crop box, but if you grab the handles in the middle of a side you can drag it Pixel by Pixel if you want. You can even do this with iPhotos "Crop button" but it doesn't give you a live readout like Preview does. Also you can make Preview to be your "External Editor" in iPhotos Preferences and never have to leave iPhoto, just be sure you use "Save" and NOT "Save As" after you make your crop.
 
I have actually done it that way. I will zoom way in and get the crop line very close to where it needs to be. In a lot of cases this is fine. As far as dragging it Pixel by Pixel I find that almost impossible to do. The mouse is convenient, but is by no means better the the keyboard.

I guess at the heart of it I am looking for any image editor for the Mac that uses the keyboard, as opposed to the mouse, to crop all 4 sides individually.

I absolutely love Preview as I use it for many different things, but it relies on the mouse.
 
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