107. Crop a Portion of an Image Before You Begin  45 About Editing Images
See Also  60 Change Image Size or Resolution
168 Create a Scrapbook Page
To ensure a quality photograph that uses good composition, it's important to properly frame a photograph before you shoot. Whenever possible, you should crop in the lens, when taking the photo. Doing so prevents the loss of quality (resolution) that occurs when you have to manually crop an image after the fact. However, even with careful planning, unwanted objects sometimes appear along the border of otherwise perfect imagesincluding my personal favorite, my thumb. In such cases, careful cropping after the fact can help eliminate the unwanted distractions. Cropping, by the way, is a process that cuts away the outer portions of an image that you no longer want to keep. Cropping not only eliminates distractions from your subject, it can also create a stronger composition by concentrating the image on your subject rather than the background. NOTES  | You can crop a single layer of an image, or crop an entire image, using a shaped border (such as a heart or an arrow) rather than a rectangular-shaped border. See 168 Create a Scrapbook Page. If you've got a lot of photos to scan, you can scan them all at the same time (place multiple photos on the scanner glass at the same time) and then use the Editor to crop out each image automatically and place them in separate files. See 7 Import and Separate Multiple Scanned Images. |
Using the Editor, you can crop an image to any size you want. However, if you intend to print the image, you might prefer to crop the image to a particular print size, such as 4" x 6". To ensure that you maintain proper quality after cropping, you can also specify the resolution you want to use. If necessary, the Editor automatically generates extra pixels (using neighboring pixel colors as a guide) so that the final image matches the desired resolution. As you crop, a rectangle appears on the image; portions of the image outside this rectangle are discarded when the cropping is complete. You can crop an image in the Organizer using Auto Fix. Choose the image you want to crop from the photo well, and then from the Organizer's menu bar, select Edit, Auto Fix Window to bring up the Auto Fix dialog box. Click the Crop button, select a size from the Aspect Ratio list, move the cropping rectangle around the image as needed to select the area to crop, and then click Apply. 1. | Click Crop Tool
TIPS  | If you want to crop the image to the same dimensions as another image, open that image, click the Crop tool, and then click the Front Image button on the Options bar. The dimensions of the current image appear in the Width, Height, and Resolution boxes. Change back to the image you want to crop, and continue to step 3. If you've used the Rectangular Marquee tool (with no feathering) to select a single rectangular area of your image, and you want to crop specifically to the edges of that selection, choose Image, Crop from the menu bar. |
Open the image you want to crop in the Editor in Standard Edit mode and save it in Photoshop (*.psd) format. Then click the Crop tool in the Toolbox.
| 2. | Set Crop Dimensions
You can crop the image to any specific size you want, if you happen to know that size beforehand. If you want to draw the exact cropping area yourself, skip this step. To specify an exact size, open the Preset Options list on the Options bar and select a size. To flip the dimensions (to specify 4" x 6" for example instead of 6" x 4 ") click the Swap height and width button on the Options bar. If you can't find a preset that matches the exact size you want to crop the image to, enter the dimensions you want to use in the Width and Height boxes.
Enter the Resolution you want to use. For images you intend to print (photo prints), use a resolution setting of 200 to 300 PPI; for images meant to be seen on-screen only (for instance, in Web pages), use a resolution of 72 DPI.
 | 3. | Draw Area to Crop
Click on the image in the upper-left corner of the area you want to keep. Drag downward and to the right to draw the cropping rectangle. The portions of the image within this rectangle are kept, and portions outside the rectangle (shown in a darkened color) are discarded.
Normally, the areas of the image to be cropped away appear through a partially black overlay. To change the color of this overlay, click the Color box that appears on the Options bar after the cropping rectangle is drawn, and choose a color to use from the Color Picker. Use the Opacity slider on the Options bar to adjust the overlay's opacity. To hide the overlay, disable the Shield check box.
| 4. | Make Adjustments
To move the cropping rectangle around the image, click inside the rectangle and drag. To resize the rectangle while maintaining the same dimensions you specified in step 2, drag a corner handle inward to make the rectangle smaller or outward to make it bigger.
To rotate the rectangle (place the rectangle at an angle), move the mouse pointer a slight distance from any outer edge of the rectangle, until the mouse pointer changes to a curved two-headed arrow. Then drag in a clockwise or counter-clockwise direction to rotate the rectangle.
| 5. | Crop Image
When the cropping rectangle is positioned as desired, click the Check Mark button on the Options bar to crop the image. The outer portions of the image are cropped. If the image contains layers, all the layers are cropped to this same size. To cancel the cropping operation, click the Cancel button (the slashed circle) instead.
| 6. | View the Result
After you're satisfied with the image, save the PSD file. Then merge the layers (if any) together by selecting Layer, Flatten Image and resave the result in JPEG or TIFF format, leaving your PSD image unflattened so that you can return at a later time and make different adjustments if you want.
Cropping this informal portrait of my husband and his family improved its composition. I then added a blue-gray wooden frame using a technique discussed in 166 Frame a Photograph. Look for this image in the Color Gallery.
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