Cropping resolution

[Sgouz]

When cropping an image in Photoshop, what resolution should I use to produce the best image? I don't want to go too high because it takes too long to crop.

[ssim]

When cropping an image in Photoshop, what resolution should I use to produce the best image? I don't want to go too high because it takes too long to crop.

I'm hoping that you are referring to the fact that it takes a long time to load the file. Cropping in Photoshop is pretty much instanteous.

When I prepare mine for the web or emailing, I use the Save for Web under File. You change putz with the options here until you get a file size you are comfortable with. Generally I do mine at 800x600 ish.

[Sgouz]

I was refering to the DPI. I selected to crop to 8in X 10x and there is a box to type in the DPI..

What should I use?

[Scottes]

If you're displaying on the Web the DPI means nothing. It literally doesn't matter what that DPI box says. What matters are the actual pixel dimensions, like 640x800 to display an image with an 8x10 aspect ratio. It's not a good idea to post a 2000x3000 image on the web - it's far too big for many people to download.

If you're printing, well, that's another story. Ideally speaking it should be 300 DPI and the image should be 2400x3000 pixels - since 2400 pixels divided by 300 DPI will be 8 inches... If the image isn't 2400x3000 pixels then resize the image and/or crop it to those dimensions.

But for printing there are a lot of answers that start with "it depends" - the above will work most of the time, but it depends.

[PhotosGuy]

If it takes a long time to crop, maybe you have a lot of layers? One extra will about double the file size, so if you choose Flatten from the layers palette, things will go a lot faster.
I save the PSD or TIFF file first, flatten, crop, & resize, then Save AS the final JPG file.
If you forget to save the original, remember you can go back in History & resave it if you do it before you close the file.