Automatically Scaled?

[FinFangFoom81]

Hello all! I have a simple newbie question/problem here...

When I open some of my photos for editing in Elements 6, the width looks scrunched and next to the filename I get a little box that says [scaled]. I was wondering if there is a way to turn this off, so that I can see the image the way it is supposed to work?

Ive looked everywhere, including general preferences and 'view' and cant seem to find any way to change this to see the photo correctly.

thanks!

[Byron Gale]

FinFangFoom81,

What is the source of your images? It sounds as if they have non-square pixels - something that can happen in certain scanning situations or in video capture, I think.

IIRC, you should be able to open the image in the free IrfanView (http://www.irfanview.com/) utility, then save from there with the pixels "squared", and then open with no problem in PSE. I don't actually have a non-square-pixel image to test this vague recollection, for sure...

HTH,

Byron

[FinFangFoom81]

Actually the images are a variety of different jpg wallpapers that I have downloaded.

Say for instance this picture of Angelina Jolie:
http://i315.photobucket.com/albums/ll447/lordburke81/AngelinaJolie-Wallpaper6.jpg


If I used the windows viewer or internet explorer the image is fine, but if I open it up in Elements 6 - the photo is destorted - basically the height stays the same, but the sides are squished in, like smashing a widescreen picture into a 4:3.

it also says:
angelina jolie - wallpaper (6).jpg @ 100% (RGB/8) [scaled]

other photos from the same group, just say the same thing except for the [scaled] part.

There are lots more photos in my collection that show up with the [scaled] tag, and come up distorted the same way.

[Byron Gale]

I get the same thing when I open that image... it has different values for horizontal and vertical resolution, which PSE6 cannot handle gracefully.

I open it in IrfanView (where it LOOKS just fine), click Image > Information... and then change the resolution values to match each other, and save the image. Then, this newly-saved version opens just perfectly in PSE6.

Byron

[Byron Gale]

Upon further reflection, now that I see you call these images "wallpapers", I wonder if they are purposely distorted so that they can be stretched to fit a desktop and then look OK... but, then, what do I know?

[FinFangFoom81]

I thought almost all images have a different vertical/horizontal resolution? Example and 800x600 image - 800 horizonal, 600 vertical unless the object is completely square? say 400x400, in which those resolutions would be the same?


So i take it there is no way to turn off this 'automatic scaling' in Elements? Is there a specific reason that this program doesnt handle the picture 'gracefully' and automatically scales it?

Will CS4 or CS3 have the same problem?

thanks!

-Mike

[Byron Gale]

Mike,

Most images have identical vertical/horizontal resolution. The example you cite, 800x600, describes an image with different pixel dimensions... the resolution is how those pixels are distributed. Given those pixel dimensions, and a resolution of 200 pixels/inch, the image would print at 4x3 inches.

Elements stopped handling the scaling of non-square pixels gracefully in version 4... prior to that, it displayed the image correctly. If I get a chance, I'll check CS4 to see how it handles the situation.

I do not know the reasoning behind the way PSE deals with dissimilar H/V resolutions.

Byron

[FinFangFoom81]

Byron

thanks for your help. I pretty much figured out what to do.,,


I opened up that Angelina picture in CS3, and I got an error message about Pixel Aspect Ratio correction. So I did a search, and found out that I can go to the 'image' menu, and slide down to 'pixel aspect ratio', and I need to switch whatever the picture is - to 'square', and the image displays just fine.

Unfortunately I do not see this same menu option in Elements. So, I guess i'll just have to stick with CS3 when editing/cropping these wallpapers down to 5x3(15:9) for my digi pic frames.

now the question is: can I stop CS3 from automatically changing the 'pixel aspect ratio' to 'CUSTOM' everytime it opens up one of these weird jpg's, or do I just have to bite the bullet and use the 'image' menu on every pic?


thanks again!
-Mike