[scribus] Image cropping

[Peter Nermander]

>> But if JPEGs are going to be cropped at export, where do we set the
>> JPEG compression and similar parameters? Two users will not have the
>> same preference, so it must be a setting that can be changed. Global
>> and/or per image? All image formats with lossy compression would need
>> to be addressed. For other image formats the function could probably
>> use the same properties as in the original image.

> craig's proposal is to crop the image which is put inside the PDF, not the one which is on your hard disk

But that doesn't change the matter. People want to have control over
the quality of the image that gets embedded.

Also, cropping 10% of the sides but saving with less JPEG compression
then the original might make the file bigger! (It has happened to me,
camera was set to "Normal" image quality but GIMP was set to very low
compression. After cropping the image the file was like twice as big
as the original...)

One thing to also remember is that the compressed size of a JPEG does
not only depend on the number och pixels and the set compression
level, it also depends on the image content. Two images of the same
resolution saved with the same compression level does not become equal
in size.

> nice idea! can you add it as a feature request in the bug tracker?

Done (I hope).

> in my eyes, leaving it uncropped in the pdf does not make much sense (expect making the process much easier for the programmers: that's why scribus currently does it that way!)

Sometimes you might want the printer to be able to adjust things in
the PDF. It's the same as embedding the full font. Why include unused
glyphs? Why not always subset?

> but, as i said, it would be nice to have a script which helps the user to crop the image to the size of the frame (and it should give the option to overwrite the linked image or to create a new cropped image, leaving the original untouched).

Yes, but I guess that can be solved by anyone a bit fluent in
scripting. That would of course give the user a fourth option when the
pre-flight check warns.

/Peter