Alvin

...and this has WHAT to do with the original post? :?

Ouch. It works, but, "OUCH!" :x Thank you, SearedIce. I don't know how I could have made my original post any clearer, but you really came to bat. Your time and patience are to be commended. Kudos! :!: Now, here's a little extra insight. When I changed the units to inches, I was frustrated because I couldn't get my selection to exactly 5x7. Close, but one of them was always off. Choosing pixels instead, I tried to select an area 500x700 (or 700x500, whatever). Again I couldn't get it exact, but I was only off on one side by one pixel, plus or minus. One pixel is not a problem. Point is, it didn't matter what my units were as long as I knew what I was working with. Holding the shift key while changing the size was bothersome, but it certainly worked. Not being able to choose my dimension as easily as in Picture It! was also bothersome. This is the one (actually, the one and only) feature I use in PI, so it doesn't look like I'll be substituting Paint.NET for it anytime soon. Oh, well. I'm looking forward to exploring some of the other features though. Thanx again, SearedIce.

First of all, I have been remiss, SearedIce, in not saying thank you for all the time you've spent trying to help me. And also thanx to the other person/people who offered their help as well. It is all much appreciated. :!: Well, we're REAL close on this. Problem is the 5x7 (for example) I want is more like a ratio, not an actual size. I don't want an image that's 5" on one side and 7" on the other; I want an image that has that proportion. Simple math. Picture It! does the math and locks it in as I change the size of the selected area. Near as I can tell from all that I've seen Paint.NET 'don't do dat.' I would be happy to hear that that's in the works. I would be ecstatic to find out that it's there RIGHT NOW.

No, I was simply explaining there was a difference between size and dimension. I don't see any resize handles. I'm using Paint.NET v2.6 Release Candidate 2. I thought it was the most current. I do not want to resize the image. I want to select an area of the picture, make that selection have a specified dimension, possibly resize the selected area keeping that dimension, and then crop the image. I have a better plan. Here's a screen capture from Picture It!: Photos stored on ImageShack. (click on the image above to see a bigger image) You can see the area I selected is clear, the rest of the image is kinda blurred. You can see the pull-down menu on the left which gives me a number of dimension options. If I select any of those options, the selected area in the original picture changes accordingly. Now I can alter the size of my selected area by using the resize handles in the corners, which will not alter the dimensions. I can shift the selected area around the original image by moving my mouse-pointer inside the selected area. When I'm satisfied that I've selected exactly the area I want, I click the Done button in the lower left hand corner. Now I can save the results as a new image, cropped to the dimensions I want. Does that help?

Well, an exact dimension. :!: 5x7, for example, can be any number of pixels. If the size of a selected area could be increased or decreased in a corner, the dimensions wouldn't change altough the size would.

That may be a poor way to ask this. What I mean is I want to select an area, and then make that selection conform to a specified dimension, like 5 x 7, or 8 x 10. I'd also like to move the selected area around before I finally crop it. I can do this in an old Microsoft product; Picture It! Thanx.