Resizing pictures...

I'm new to photoshop and I've read different tutorials, but I keep getting confused. What I'm trying to do is take larger pictures and make them into icons (100x100 in size). I'm having a lot of difficulty with the canvas sizing so that I can make it a perfect square so that I'm able to resize the image to 100x100. What keeps happening is that I get the picture, but often times there is white either on the sides of the picture or on the top and bottom. I know it'll still be 100x100 but what I need to know is, can I resize the image so that I do not have the white on the sides, top, and or bottom, and how do I go about doing it? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

~ringer04~

If you're trying to canvass a large picture that is not a perfect square already you'll have that white borders. I suggest using the crop tool to capture the portion you want in the picture and it will automatically resize itself.

If this does not help, feel free to inform me

Thank you for responding so quickly. I did the cropping, but the problem is, I still can't size it to be 100x100. I, again, have to change the canvas size and then the image size. I appreaciate the suggestion, but I don't think it's going to work.

~ringer04~

Maybe you've use the crop tool wrong...look at the info tab at the upper right side, there you can see the X and Y coordinates in which it can guide you the crop size.

or you can try this, though is a longer way...

1.click the marquee tool
2.at the options bar of the marquee tool at the right side there is an option in which you can set a fix size for your marquee. Set it to 100 by 100.
3.click the image using a marquee tool, a selection with a 100x100 size will appear.
4. move the selection with the marquee tool on the area you want to convert as an icon.
5. hold ctrl+shift and press I, then press delete. You should be left with the area you want to convert into image.
6. move the image at the upper left side of the document (if you have the snap on, it should automatically snap its way).
7. ctrl+click the layer with the picture and your image should have a selection.
8. right-click the title bar of the document and click canvas size
9. at the canvas dialog box click the arrow that is at the upper left corner and set the text boxes to 100 and click OK

Note: If you canvas an image which is not a perfect square you're going to have that white problem

The shortest & easiest way is to use your crop tool.

1. When you have selected crop tool, you can put the desired size in the width & height fields of the options bar (Window > Options).
In this case 100 px and 100 px.
If you don't put 'px' (pixels) in as well, it will default to inches resulting in a huge file that takes forever to crop
2. Click and drag to select the desired area. The crop marquee will only let you drag a perfect square.
3. You can adjust this with the corner handles if required.
4. When happy, hit 'Return' or 'Enter' or you can double-click in the centre of your crop area to apply the crop.

This will give you a perfect square at 100 x 100 pixels.

Hope this helps

Cheers

I'll try both of those! Thanks so much for your help!!!