Windows 7 Tutorial

Resize a picture in Windows 7: make an image larger or smaller

You will rarely be using a picture that is exactly the right size (of the right dimensions) for the purpose you have in mind; fortunately, Windows 7 comes with a basic image editor that allows to resize pictures up or down (make images larger or smaller). This tutorial explains how to do that, and how to prevent distortion -when a picture looks squeezed by being too wide or too tall- by leveraging the "Constrain Proportion" option. We will also show you how to resize a portion of an image, an ideal trick if you want to place emphasis on a specific area of the photo.

 

Resizing pictures with MS Paint

Follow these simple steps to change the dimensions of an image:

Tip: once you get more familiar with Paint, a quicker to open an image file is to right-click on it, choose "Open With" from the context menu, and then click on "Paint" in the submenu.

Right-click on images to open them with Paint

Resize a portion of an image

To resize only a part of a picture, click on the Select tool in the Home tab, and drag an area around the portion of the image you want to resize. Then follow the same steps as above, and you will see resized only the area of the photo that was selected: (notice that the head is now 150% larger than originally)

Partially resized picture in Windows 7
The only difference is that when you want to apply new dimensions to a sub-selection of an image, you need to right-click inside the selection area to choose "Resize", otherwise Paint will deselect that area.

Note: this tutorial also works in Windows Vista and Windows XP, but you will find the Resize command under the Edit menu. (You can also press the Ctrl+E keyboard shortcut to bring up the Resize dialog for MS Paint in all three operating systems.)

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