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About this lesson
These tools are great for changing a photos dimension, for singling out individuals from a group photo, or cutting out unwanted power lines. Also useful for changing the aspect ratios of a photo (widescreen, for example). Remember, sometimes the difference between a great picture and an amazing picture is a creative chop away.
Exercise files
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Quick reference
Topic
Essential cropping techniques for CS6 and above.
When to use
These tools are great for changing a photos dimension, for singling out individuals from a group photo, or cutting out unwanted power lines. Also useful for changing the aspect ratios of a photo (widescreen, for example). Remember, sometimes the difference between a great picture and an amazing picture is a creative chop away.
Instructions
- Press ‘C’ to activate the Crop tool
- By default, the Crop tool is set to unconstrained
- Make sure that the ‘Delete Cropped Pixels’ is off
Cropping options
- Dragging the picture viewer from the sides will shift the cropping area
- Dark areas will be cropped out of a picture
- Use the options in the dropdown for multiple types of ratios
- To rotate the crop, move the cursor to the outside of the crop area and hold: a double arrow will appear to change the rotation with.
- To straighten a crooked image, press the straighten button on the Options bar and draw a line across the part of the image that you want straighten.
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- 00:04 Cropping in Photoshop CS6 has gotten some interesting changes,
- 00:07 which seemed to be a hit or miss amongst users. The Crop tool can be located under the
- 00:11 Tools bar on the left
- 00:13 or by pressing the letter C on your keyboard. With the tools activity, you'll now see
- 00:17 the crop handles that surround the image.
- 00:18 There are a few features to take note of with the Crop
- 00:21 tool.
- 00:22 On the Options bar at the top of your workspace, the first dropdown will give
- 00:26 you a few options as to the aspect ratio of the crop.
- 00:29 By default your crop is set to unconstrained, which means you're free to
- 00:32 drag any the crop handles
- 00:33 to simply chop off unwanted areas of your photo.
- 00:37 You'll notice that when you drag your crop handles, the area of the image that will
- 00:40 remain visible
- 00:41 stays centered on your workspace. And just like in previous versions of Photoshop,
- 00:44 the area that will be removed is slightly darkened .
- 00:46 If you find yourself having a hard time getting used
- 00:50 to the auto centered preview,
- 00:51 you can turn it on or off under the gear icon on your Options bar.
- 00:55 This area also allows you to turn on Classic Mode, which mimics what you're
- 00:58 used to from Photoshop CS5.
- 01:00 Going back to the aspect ratios, one of the options available to you
- 01:04 is original ratio, which means if the image was taken with a four by six
- 01:08 aspect ratio,
- 01:09 if you were to drag in your handles inwards the final crop will remain four
- 01:13 by six.
- 01:14 This is very useful if you specifically show your images at a certain aspect
- 01:17 ratio and don't want to stray away from it.
- 01:18 Photoshop also includes many of the common
- 01:22 aspect ratios, which we first tend to use.
- 01:24 Selecting any of them will resize the crop area to match that ratio.
- 01:28 The Crop tool also gives you the option to rotate your image if you so choose.
- 01:32 Moving your cursor outside the crop area will activate your rotate tool:
- 01:36 you'll notice that your cursor has changed into curved arrows. Holding down your
- 01:39 mouse button and dragging will rotate the image.
- 01:42 This is one area of the Crop tool that some users will find difficult to get
- 01:45 used to.
- 01:46 Instead of the crop area rotating like it did in Photoshop CS5,
- 01:49 in CS6 the image rotates to give you a live preview of
- 01:52 what your final result will look like. This may take some time getting used to, but
- 01:56 once you do,
- 01:57 the pros definitely outweigh the cons. At this point, if you're happy with the way
- 02:01 the image is looking inside the crop area,
- 02:03 you either press the check mark on the Options bar to apply the crop
- 02:06 or you can use the Return or Enter key on your keyboard. What's really nice about
- 02:10 the new Crop tool
- 02:11 is that, by default, Photoshop stores what you decided not to keep,
- 02:14 just in case you change your mind later on. Going back to the Crop tool,
- 02:18 if you click on the crop area you can adjust the crop if needed.
- 02:21 If, of course, you want to be completely destructive with your edit,
- 02:24 checking off Delete Crop Pixels on your Options bar will permanently delete
- 02:28 everything outside the crop area when you apply the crop.
- 02:30 Be careful. The last area of the crop tool I want to touch
- 02:34 on is straightening.
- 02:34 Many times I found myself taking a picture of a horizon,
- 02:38 only to realize I took the picture on an angle. Instead of rotating the image and
- 02:42 guessing if I corrected the mistake,
- 02:44 I can now click on the ‘Straighten’ button on the Options bar, and then draw a line
- 02:48 across my horizon.
- 02:49 Photoshop will use that line to correct the image.
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