Cropping and Straightening

You should be happy that Lightroom now has the ability to crop and straighten photos, because when it first came out (Beta 1), it didn't have either. We would all just sit around and say stuff like, "I love this program, but I can't believe you can't crop a photo." I guess Adobe heard our plaintive wails because in Beta 2 they added cropping, and although it's an entirely different way of cropping than in Photoshop, you might find that you like it even better. Hey, I said, "you might find," so it gives me a pretty big out if you don't like it.

Step One

To crop your photo, click on the Crop icon (circled here in red) and two things happen: (1) a cropping border appears around your photo, and (2) the Crop & Straighten panel appears in the list of panels on the right side of Lightroom. (Well, it doesn't "appear." It basically scrolls down there in a jiffy.)

©SCOTT KELBY

Step Two

To crop your photo, just grab one of the corners (or the sides, or anywhere on that border for that matter) and drag inward. As you drag, you'll notice that a grid appears dividing your cropped area into thirds, giving you a "rule of thirds" overlay as you drag (how sweet is that?!). If you press-and-hold the Shift key while you drag, the cropping border will stay proportional. If you don't press-and-hold the Shift key, it's a freeform crop, and you can move any side, top, or bottom without disturbing the other sides.

Step Three

Once you let go of the borders, you can reposition your photo within the cropping border by moving your cursor inside the border (as shown here), and just clicking-and-dragging the photo around right where you want it.

Step Four

You also have the option of using preset crop sizes by choosing them from the Crop & Straighten panel's pop-up menu (as shown here). When you choose one of these presets, your cropping border resizes to fit your choice, and the area that falls inside that border will be the size you chose (so, for example, here we chose 4x6, so the area inside the cropping border will be exactly 4x6"). If you choose Enter Custom from this pop-up menu, it brings up a dialog where you can type in the cropping aspect ratio you'd like.

Step Five

If at any time you want to cancel your cropping, just press the Reset button in the Crop & Straighten panel (as shown here).

Step Six

If you need to straighten your photo, you do that in a similar way. You can do it while you're cropping by just moving your cursor outside the cropping border, and you'll notice it turns into a curved, two-headed arrow. Just click, hold, and rotate. A grid will appear over your cropping area to help you with visually straightening your photo. You can also just drag the Straighten Settings Angle slider in the Crop & Straighten panel (as shown here). No matter which method you choose, as you rotate the photo, Lightroom automatically adjusts the size of the photo, so that when you're done straightening there are no white gaps in the corners (like there would be if you did this in Photoshop. Very helpful).

Step Seven

Once you're done with your cropping and straightening, you can just move on with your work, and from now on, only the cropped and straightened view of your photo will appear. For example, when you return to the Library module, you can see that the thumbnail (top center) now displays just your cropped and straightened version.

Step Eight

Now, because of the non-destructive nature of Lightroom, this crop can always be removed, and your original photo brought back unscathed by going back to the Develop module, scrolling down to the Crop & Straighten panel, and clicking the Reset button to the right of the Show Crop Overlay checkbox. If you just want to change your crop (rather than remove it), then turn on the Show Crop Overlay checkbox, and your cropping border returns over your photo for easy editing.

Step Nine

Once your cropping edits have been made, just turn off the Show Crop Overlay checkbox (as shown) and the newly cropped version now appears, and you can then return to working as normal, all with the peace of mind of knowing that this cropping is not destructive and can be undone at anytime (in Lightroom).