Content-aware photo resize - resizing only a small section of the photo

**jrmcanada** · 13 February 2016, 06:31 PM

I'm trying to resize just a small part of a photo, leaving most of the photo unchanged. But no matter what I have tried, I end up keeping my selection unchanged and resizing the rest of the photo. The process I'm following is:

1. Mask the area I'm trying to resize.
2. Select the content-aware photo resize tool.
3. Click Prepare.
4. Resize the photo.

I've also tried the same process with inverting the mask. Either way produces the same results - the small area gets protected and the rest of the photo gets resized.

I read something in the help that said we can't protect more than half the photo or you'll get an error during the Prepare stage, but I don't get an error. Also, I have definitely done this task before - I have the photos to prove it!

What am I doing wrong?

How can I resize just a small portion of a photo?

Thanks in advance!

**gwpriester** · 13 February 2016, 06:45 PM

Welcome to TalkGraphics

I have not used this feature since it was first introduced so I am not sure exactly how it works anymore. But have you tried trial and error with different size masks?

And what happens if you make a duplicate, apply the resize to the duplicate, then apply a circular transparency to the duplicate to let the original show on the outsides?

**Egg Bramhill** · 14 February 2016, 02:14 AM

I don't think it's possible to do it this way. View this:

**jrmcanada** · 14 February 2016, 03:10 AM

Originally Posted by Egg Bramhill

I don't think it's possible to do it this way. View this:

Wow! Thank you so much for all the effort you put into that.

I realize I wasn't clear in what I was trying to do so allow me to elaborate.

I have a photo where there are people on the left (taking up about half the photo) and then another person on the far right of the photo. The gap between the people on the left and the person on the right is about one third the width of the photo and it has nothing particularly interesting in it. I'd like to shrink just that section of the photo, leaving all of the people untouched.

On my first attempt, I selected the gap and clicked Prepare. But when I resized, the gap was protected and everything else shrunk.

So on my second attempt, I selected the gap, clicked the Invert Mask button (at which point I could see that the mask was inverted) and clicked Prepare. But when I resized, exactly the same thing happened as the first time.

So what I'm attempting to do is shrink just the gap in the middle of the photo, leaving the side sections untouched.

Another example of where this could be used is if you have a group of people and you want to slim down just one of them. It's the same principle - we want to leave most of the photo unchanged, but just resize a relatively narrow band in the centre somewhere. But all I've been able to do today is leave the band in the centre untouched while resizing everything else ... which is the opposite.

What's driving me crazy is that I've done this before with Photo & Graphics Designer. Twice ... once just a month ago. But I cannot remember how I did it.

Any help would protect my sanity.

**siran** · 14 February 2016, 05:06 AM

I could reproduce your problem. It works well if you do not use the invert mask operation but mask the correct area in the first step. Maybe that is a bug?

**jrmcanada** · 14 February 2016, 05:29 AM

I guess my problem is that I don't know how to select the proper area to begin with. What I mean is that since there's a strip in the middle of the photo that I want to resize, that means there are two sections of the photo (one of the left of the strip and the other on the right of the strip) that I want to protect. How do I select those two sections without using the invert button?