Abstract: A method for resizing an input digital image to form an output digital image with an output aspect ratio, comprising: determining a number of rows or columns that need to be reduced from the input digital image; determining an image energy map for the input digital image; repeatedly determining a seam path responsive to the image energy map and removing pixels along the determined seam path to determine the output digital image, wherein the determined seam path satisfies a constraint that a directional image gradient is less than a gradient threshold for each pixel in the seam path, until either the determined number of rows or columns has been reduced or no valid seam path can be found; and cropping or scaling the output digital image to the output aspect ratio if the determined number of rows or columns was not reduced.