I am not a techy kind of guy so this may be a little stupid question. Is therre a computer program out there that can take a pic and make it longer or shorter and narrower with out contorting the pic. If so where would I get it and how much
Generally no, if you simply try to elongate a digital photo just in one direction it will not come out proportional. But yes, photo enhancement programs will allow this to be done but the results will be as you state, contorted.
For the results I think you mean it is better to allow the photo enhancement program to manipulate each side so it come out proportionally automatically.
Generally most programs have a standard feature to resize the photo.
You can click on the photo and drag it proportionally to the size you want.
The simplest photo program can be had for free if you sign up at photo bucket. This site allows you to store photos and enhance as described.
Steve
Just about any photo editing software, including that which is provided with just about any digital camera, will allow you to resize a digital photo in this way. The methods by which this are performed in each program may be different, but usually there is a “resize” option. With most programs the resize option has a setting named something like “maintain aspect ratio” or something similar that instructs the program to keep the width to height ration constant while changing the dimensions of the image. Most also have a crop tool that allows you to cut away portions of the image that you don’t want.
Most online photo storage sites also provide free online tools to do this too. This includes photobucket, smugmug, Costco.com, photoshop.com, and others.
You can also download free programs like Picasa or Gimp.
Photoshop Elements is excellent. I have also used Picasa (Free from Google) for editing and it’s great for a free editor, but it doesn’t have the same capacity to resize photos (I don’t think). I use the PS Elements now because I’m doing a lot of web site work and needed a way to make the photos smaller in every way. It was worth the investment. You may also try some of the online photo bucket sites. They are now adding editors to their sites as an added bonus for storing your photos there. You can find those in some of the photo bucket type sites Like Photobucket, flickr etc. …and now there are several free ONLINE photo editing sites as well. Examples http://www.picnik.com/ http://fotoflexer.com/ http://pixer.us/
There are dozens…just find the one you like that does what you want.
I just went to have a look to see if Picasa has done any updates. They have. They are now on version 3 beta and it looks really slick. Here is a video on YouTube that shows the new features. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rskC6c_5L1M Remember! This program is absolutely FREE and I really have enjoyed using it. (version 2) I think I might just download the new one and start storing some photos on the Google Picasa site. They make it too easy!!
so, your original question is:
try this
http://www.digitalphotofix.com/enlarging-digital-photos.html