How to Crop in Photoshop
As promised – and after having explained how to take a screenshot – here are the simple steps on “How to Crop in Photoshop”.
How to Crop in Photoshop
Why would one want to crop an image in the first place?
Well, very often we just wish to show a detail of a picture – as I do at the top as I will be explaining in a second. It can be a photo, a document, a map – anything.
Or we wish to change the dimensions… and possibly we wish to change the dimensions for a whole series of images… for instance when preparing them for the Cu3er Slider in the Ycademy Workshop.
So let’s see how to crop in Photoshop:
First, Import the picture you want to crop into your Photoshop – see under File top left.
Second, on the top left vertical bar – marked as 1. on my screenshot above – click the Crop Tool. You will see that as soon as you do this, you have the Width and the Height spaces at the top where you now want to insert your targeted dimensions, like 460 x 400 px in my example.
Now drag your mousetip over your image, holding down and creating a square of ‘marching ants’ – to define your rectangle.
On my example you can see the indications – and the rectangle I want to crop – very clearly.
Third, on the top, under Image and its dropdown menu, you click on CROP and voila! it’s done!
Note: if you have a very large image that you did not reduce in size first, go and check the Image Size after cropping. It is very possible that you simply have to put in the width value – 460 px in my case – and the picture automatically adapts to the targeted size. You can now save it for your post.
So it’s really just a few clicks and you can get very fast with it.
And yes, you don’t even need to click on “crop” under Image… you can simply click on the Move Tool and it will ask you whether you wish to crop or not. There are many roads to Rome even on Photoshop :)
Cropping Images in Photoshop
Here’s another fast and easy way of Cropping in Photoshop, this time using the Rectangular Marquee Tool.
Again, pull up the image you wish to crop or change in terms of dimension (1.).
This time, you may not yet have a clear idea of what sizes are ideal – you wish to decide that by picking the best part directly on your image.
Next, click on the Rectangular Marquee Tool (2.) on the left vertical tool bar and, dragging your mouse over your picture, define the frame.
Marching ants will indicate very clearly what you have chosen – I indicated with a red stroke what I chose to crop. You can try this as many times as you wish until the frame is where you want to have it, meaning it encloses the detail of your image that you want to crop.
Last, as before Crop it from the dropdown menu under IMAGE at the top (3.).
Note: When you crop a picture, it will reduce to the chosen size.
If you made a mistake and you want to rather change it again, just go back under HISTORY on your right vertical tool bar (tick it under WINDOW at the top if you don’t see it).
Also, you may want to save this detail for a certain purpose, say to insert it into your post – but you don’t want to touch the original large image. So – once you saved your detail for your website publishing purpose – go back to HISTORY and reverse to the top image, which is the original. Now close it without saving any changes – as you wish to keep it as it was.
Be fully aware as to what you are doing. In most cases we wish to keep our originals as the basis to work from, untouched, unmodified so to speak.
How to use Rulers in Photoshop
Unless you have a well trained eye, I would advise you use the vertical and horizontal rulersin Photoshop to guide you to define your chosen frame.
If you don’t see them, click on VIEW at the top and tick them. Simply pull the horizontal ruler down from the top with your mouse; pull the vertical ruler to the right from the left. Just try and see how it all happens like magic!
I hope you enjoyed this – if anything is not clear, let me know in your comments.
