How to Adjust images without stretching?

Is there a way to fix images to stretch across the screen? Suppose I find a nice stock image(for discussion purposes http://www.123rf.com/search.php?word=1598901) that I would like to buy, and the image is 846x566px. I would like to use the picture as a website banner, and needs to be 1100px wide by 300px tall (responsive layout for higher/lower displays). If I resize/stretch the image will be badly distorted. If I crop top/bottom the picture is damaged, faces chopped in half… The websites that I see have only one image that has an aspect ratio of about 5:1. How do you adjust images to work as banners?

One must find images that can fit within a 5:1 frame. If your chosen images do not fit that ratio, then you have to have to be happy after the image is cropped from the top and bottom to fit a 5:1 frame. It’s simple geometry. Very simple. If the size is smaller than the max size to be rendered, then expect some fuzziness on large screens after it is scaled larger to fit the screen width, etc.

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I know you would say Adobe Photoshop would do it for sure. I agree, it really does this task. But somewhere I found that even Photoshop, though capable of re-sizing the Image to somewhat extent is unable to produce a good Image Quality while resizing.

The image linked is not a very good image to modify; the only thing you could do is try and add some more grass to one side or the other.

Out of interest check out “liquid image rescale” on your favourite search engine.

What photo editing software are you using?

Personally, I wouldn’t use any software to try to increase the size of an image. In addition to what @ronpat has said about the aspect ration, you need to have an image which is large enough for the purpose. Using an image 846px wide and trying to stretch it to 1100px will never give a good result, in my experience.

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True, going larger usually always distorts the quality. But it would be good to know what the op is working with to better understand how to help.

I am using Photoshop CC 2015. I can buy an increased resolution to the image so that it doesn’t need to be horizontally stretched, but the higher resolution doesn’t solve the aspect ratio / chopping issue.

But what will? The aspect is what it is! If you don’t want to crop, either you change the aspect you use in the page to fit the picture, or you find a picture that fits the aspect.
Three options: crop the picture to aspect, change container aspect to the picture or swap picture for one the right aspect.

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