How do I just get the image, and get rid of the black columns on right and left in Shotwell?

Is there a way of cropping the image in the center and getting rid of the black columns that shotwell shows on the screen?

2 Answers

From command line you can use this

convert {image} -bordercolor black -border 1x1 -fuzz 20% -trim +repage {new_image} 

From the imagemagick manual: trim and the commandline options:

Trim, the 'Auto-Crop' Operator

The "-trim" operator is a very close relation to the highly versatile "-crop" operator discussed above. However instead of supplying an argument, this operator attempts to remove any borders or edges of an image which did does not change in color or transparency. In other words it removes the 'boring' bits surrounding an image.

Use a +repage to remove the virtual canvas page information if it is unwanted.

Double click the image. Click the "Crop" button. Crop the image to the desired format. Click "Crop" when done.