A system and method for expansion and reduction of images in an image editing application uses the frequency of pixels values (e.g., absolute color and/or intensity values) of an input image to determine respective energy values for each pixel of the image. The energy values may vary inversely with the frequency of the pixel values. The energy values may be used to determine one or more low-cost seams of the image to be removed for an image reduction operation or replicated for an image expansion operation, where the cost of each seam is dependent on the energy values of the pixels of the seam. Determining the frequency of pixel values of the image may involve determining the number of pixels having an absolute pixel value in each of a plurality of pixel value ranges, and the absolute pixel values included in each range may be configurable by the user.