Funny Photos (K2 #61)

Question

I noticed that in some local magazines and even websites the photos sometimes look stretched or squashed. Why does this happen? How to fix it?

— J. N., Thimphu

Answer

Dear J. N.,

Indeed, I’ve seen those photos too. They remind me of the special mirrors placed in clothing shops’ dressing rooms, designed to make you “look” extra thin in that dress. Or funhouse mirrors in amusement parks that make you look extra short or extremely tall.

Let’s bite our teeth into the issue: each photo has a certain aspect ratio, which is the ratio of the width of the photo to its height. Sounds complicated? Not really. For example, a 4”x6” photo of cute puppies has an aspect ratio of 4” divided by 6”, or 2:3 (two-thirds). Computer images also have aspect ratios. A photo which is 1024 pixels (or dots) wide, and 768 pixels high, has an aspect ratio of 1024 divided by 768, or 4:3. A perfectly-square image has an aspect ratio of 1:1, since the height and the width are equal. CD covers, by the way, are square images. 

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Why do you see these distorted images in some publications? The distortion happens when a photo’s aspect ratio is changed. The graphic editor decided to increase (or decrease) the width or height of the photo, but without a corresponding change in the other dimension. Here’s an example: say that you want to design a beautiful CD cover (remember, it’s a square) using a stunning landscape photo taken with a digital camera – one in which the width is larger than the height. You open the photo in a photo-editing software, such as Photoshop, Picasa, or Microsoft Office Picture Manager, and start decreasing the width until the photo is a perfect square. Notice that while decreasing the width, you did not change the height at all. The photo can now fit nicely as a CD cover, but you have squashed the image and it doesn't look very professional. 

In order to avoid a distorted photo, never resize only the width or only the height. You should resize them together. Some software packages allow you to lock the aspect ratio of a photo when resizing; you will want to use that option. And if the photo does not fit exactly into the space allocated for it - the trick it to crop (remove) unnecessary parts until it fits.

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