What is disclosed is a method for iterative seam selection in an image resizing system utilizing a seam carving technique. In one embodiment, an importance map is generated for a received source image. Seams are carved through the image from one edge to an opposite edge. An energy is computed for each seam based on pixel importance values. A distance is computed from each seam to a previously selected seam. A weighting for each seam is computed using a defined weighting function and the calculated seam distances. The weighting is applied to the energy of each seam produce a revised energy for each seam. A seam is selected based on the produced revised energy. The image is resized at a location of the selected seam. The process repeats until the image has been resized to a desired target output dimension. In such a manner, unnatural image resizing results are avoided.