Selecting Portions of Photos

iPhoto's next toolthe cropping toolrequires that you select a portion of the picture first.

To select part of a photo:

• In edit mode, drag to create a selection rectangle in the image. iPhoto fogs the photo outside your selection rectangle to help you focus on what you have selected (Figure 4.17).

  Figure 4.17. To select a portion of a photo, drag to create a selection rectangle. Move it by dragging it; resize it by dragging an edge. Here I've created a selection rectangle with no specific proportion to focus on the seaplane and the odd truck.

  

• To move your selection rectangle around, drag it (your pointer should be a hand). You may need to move a selection rectangle to align it to the edges of a picture, since it's hard to start selecting right at the edge.

• To resize a selection rectangle, drag the rectangle's edge.

• To constrain the selection rectangle to specific proportions, choose an aspect ratio from the Constrain pop-up menu. If you haven't created a selection rectangle, it will be constrained when you do; if you have one already, iPhoto resizes it (Figure 4.18). To remove a constraint, choose None from the Constrain menu.

  Figure 4.18. To constrain an image to specific proportions, choose an aspect ratio from the Constrain pop-up menu (here I've chosen 4 x 6, which will make a good print while not detracting from the subject of the picture). You can move and resize the selection rectangle while maintaining the selected aspect ratio.

  

• To constrain the selection rectangle to custom proportions, edit the image in its own window, and enter the desired aspect ratio before you start selecting.

• To deselect everything and start over, click in the fogged area.