Resizing without cropping

[paulh28054304]

Many times I have tried to use a photo as a screen background on my computer or tablet or even as a picture on a greeting card. 

More often than not the edges are cropped out.  How can I use Lightroom or Photoshop to resize these pictures to fit in any of these situations? 

[JP Hess · Accepted solution]

I don't know what the aspect ratio of your monitor is but the aspect ratio up my monitor is 16:9. My camera takes images that are in the aspect ratio of 2:3. There is no way to make the full image fit on the entire screen of the monitor. Whenever I choose an image to display as a background image for my computer it always requires cropping some of the original image away. The same would be true of a greeting card. Unless the greeting card is going to be designed in the precise aspect ratio taken by the camera, there must be some of the image that will have to be discarded.

[dj_paige]

In Lightroom, there is no logical way to take a photo that has a certain aspect ratio (for example, 3:2) and turn it into a different aspect ratio (say 16:9) without cropping.

So I don't think what you are asking for is possible.

[Just Shoot Me]

You either end up with white space around the image or having it cropped to fit the page size you are printing to.

If an image is in the ratio of 3/2 (3 unit wide by 2 units tall) and you are trying to use that image on a 5 x 7 inch page, paper, print, then you either have to have the image cropped to a 3.5/2.5 ratio or have white space at the top and bottom of the page, paper, print.

Or you can have white space of 1/2 inch on all sides. 7 - 1 = 6 / 2 = 3 and 5 - 1 = 4 / 2 = 2. 3/2  ratio.

Or you can crop the image yourself to fit the page, paper, print size so you are in control of what is taken out of the image.

[Bill Sprague]

(Update on edit: I must be too slow at typing.  In the time I was typing three of the best already had answers up!  I should delete everything except the reference to the J Kost video at the bottom!  )

The world is not fair!

Cameras shoot with one aspect ratio and screens display another.   If you are using a DSLR the aspect ratio is 3:2.  Most screens are 16:9.  Greeting cards can be anything.

The only thing you can do is use the crop tool and, for computer screens, select the 16:9 aspect ratio and lock it.  Then you can do the cropping.

Resizing is different and refers to pixels or file size.  At Export in Lightroom Classic you can make resize to different settings will keeping the aspect ration you set with the crop tool.

In Photoshop there are tools that "Transform" and image meaning you can squish it in ways to force everything into the box you want.  It will look very distorted.  Lightroom does not have those tools.

You might enjoy looking watching Adobe's Julieanne Kost explain the cropping tool choices here:  Lightroom CC - Cropping Images - YouTube

[JP Hess]

Well, you probably could do it in Photoshop and really distort the image if you wanted to. But I don't think that is your intention.