Hi All,

I have a problem. I haven't shot in a long while and can't remember when or how my camera ended up in a 4:3 aspect ratio. Anyway, I shot a photo by accident in the 4:3 aspect ratio tight with no room for crop. I need to crop it to print at 8x10 but the crop will cut off essential parts of the picture. Is there any way to correct this in PS CC? Thanks in advance.

Regardless of what editing software you use, one option in your case would be put the image on a 4x5 ratio canvas in which your image fits, and then the tough part is to think of what if anything can be cloned onto the blank canvas areas, or any effects that could be used to essentially add imagery to the blank canvas areas that was not captured in camera.

Best case scenarios that I can think of would be if the image was a high key or low key seamless paper background image where that background could be cloned over any blank canvas areas around your captured image.

Also for example, water and sky and sand in the case of a beach scene can be cloned onto the blank canvas areas, to extend horizons if those elements are present in the captured image but greater artistic skills will likely be needed for the end result to be convincing to the viewer.

In rare cases where the background of the original photo shoot is still accessible and has not changed noticeably since the time the photo was taken, go back and capture the background as an image, and then you can layer a 4x5 crop of the background over the new canvas and then superimpose your crop onto it.

Thanks Mark so much for your help. I created a 9x12 white canvas, copied my image on to it and cropped it at 8x10. Since the background was trees and bushes, I used to the content aware tool to extend the background in the blank areas. It took a while to find to figure the correct size canvas to use but it worked out.

Thanks again.

Another way is to add your canvas as before and use content aware scale to stretch your image over the extra canvas area...should work.

Let me add to what I just suggested. Content aware scale will work depending on the subject matter in the shot.
If it's a portrait it could distort the person....subject dependent.

Another alternative... use the crop tool set at 4:5 (or whatever ratio is needed) and tick the box "Content Aware". Instead of cropping into the image you actually crop out of the image, i.e. you are setting a new aspect ratio and enlarging the canvas, all in one step. This also fills in the newly created space using artificial intelligence.