Post Processing #4 - Cropping

[Scottes]

OK, here's my original shot viewed at 16%

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/5709_16percent.jpg

We're going to crop some of the ugliness out which will also zoom in a bit to the coyote.


One way to crop is to use the Crop Tool (Holy Cow!) which can be chosen by pressing C or by clicking on the tool on the toolbar:

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/5709_croptool.gif

The Crop Tool is easy - it has little handles on each edge and corner to allow you to move the edges. Put the mouse cursor inside one of those boxes and the cursor turns into a double arrow - now just click and drag the corner or edge. You can drag the crop box around, too - click anywhere inside the box and hold the mouse button down and drag the crop box around. Play with it until you get the composition you wish.

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/5709_cropping.jpg

If you care about the dimension, check the Info Palette - over on the right you get the current dimensions of the final image after cropping. You might not want to go below a certain size or you may wish it to be a particular size. I sized it to 1800x1200, since this will evenly resize to 600x400 and the math was easy. :)

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/5709_info.gif

You'll see that I got rid of 3 ugly things - the tree in the upper left corner, the patch of dirt, and the almost overblown patch of grass in the lower left. I dragged the crop box over a bit to get the coyote off-center a bit but I didn't have much room so he's almost centered.

I'm ready to crop, so I can shoose Image... Crop or just double-click anywhere inside the crop box. Yahoo! Done.

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/5709_crop1.jpg


OK, here's another way to crop - using the Marquee Tool. It's more difficult but has a couple of advantages. Select the Marquee Tool by pressing M, or choose it from the toolbar:

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/5709_marqueetool.gif

Just click somewhere and drag until you've got the size you want, and let go.

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/5709_selection.jpg

Well, I didn't get this so perfect. I can drag it around like the Crop Tool, but I can't change the dimensions once I let go. And you can see that this isn't so perfect - I included some of the blown-out grass and some of the dirt pile.

Heck! The Marquee Tool stinks for this!

Fear not - the Marquee tool has some advantages. First, check out the tool bar at the top. The Style is usually set to "Normal" but there are hidden gems under there - namely "Fixed Aspect Ratio" and "Fixed Size"

Are you going to print at 8x10 or 5x7? Then Fixed Aspect Ratio is your friend.

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/5709_aspect.gif

Simply type 5 in the first box, and 7 in the second. Now when you click and drag the marquee it will hold to that aspect ratio.

Oh, darn. I want 5x7 but in landscape, which means I want 7x5 really. No problem, simply click on the double-arrow between the 5 and 7 and they'll switch positions.

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/5709_aspectflip.gif

Then I can resize it to the final 2100x1500 (7x5 @ 300 DPI) and I'm done.


But how about if you want a very particular size? 5x7 at 300 DPI is 1500x2100, so I want that choice so I don't have to resize anything. Well, "Fixed Size" is your friend!

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/5709_fixed.gif
http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/5709_fixedselection.jpg

Now I'm cropped to print a perfect 5x7 - OK, 7x5 - at 300 DPI. Bang! One click and I'm ready to print. Woo-Hoo!


When the Marquee has a selection made you can drag it around as I said. Just click inside the box and drag and the selection box will move. DON'T choose the Move Tool or you will drag the selected area around, and you probably don't want that.

When dragging you'll notice that it will become "sticky" at the edges of the image, helping you from selecting "outside" the image, which would really make your image smaller. If you're really finicky you can move the box around with your arrow keys on the keyboard. Each press of an arrow key will move the box 1 pixel, and holding the Shift key will move it 10 pixels. If one of the lines of "marching ants" disappears then you've gone outside the image - use the arrow keys to nudge it back so you can see the marching ants all the way around.

When you're ready, choose Image... Crop to crop the image.

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/5709_croppedsize.jpg


I like using the Marquee tool. I almost never use the Crop Tool. I like to know the final dimensions for print, and the Crop tool is a pain for that.

However, the Crop Tool has a very handy trick that fixes this:

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/5709_cropresize.gif

I selected the Crop tool, and entered the important information: 7 in x 5 in (I literally typed "7in" in the first box - typing just a "7" gave me pixels, which is not desired!) and then set the resolution to 300 DPI. When I selected my area the Crop tool kept the 7x5 aspect ratio, and when I cropped it automagically resized it to 2100x1500, or 5x7 at 300 DPI! Ready to print! Cool!

Even better, let's say that I was just posting to the web. I'd enter "600px" in the first box and "400px" in the second. This will give me a 600 pixel by 400 pixel image. The DPI is meaningless for web display, so use anything.

Shazaam! Save this baby, and post it! I'm done!

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/5709_croptrick.jpg


Alas, it's not always that easy. I personally feel that separately cropping and resizing will give a mildly better image. It's minute, yes, but it's a little better. And I believe that doing each step just a little better yields a better final product. I'd rather do the extra work. That's me.


So, we have several choices:
1) Crop Tool, setting the composition to how we like.
2) Crop Tool, and using the "resize trick" to go right to the final image
3) Marquee Tool, clicking and dragging and hopefully getting it right.
4) Marquee Tool set to a particular Fixed Size
5) Marquee Tool set to a particular Fixed Aspect Ratio

And the pros/cons:
1) Great for perfect composition - the only choice for this
2) Easy as hell, but might not yield a perfect image
3) Pretty useless if you want control over the final size. But the fastest if you just want to get it roughly composed.
4) Great if you want to crop out just a 4x6 or 5x7 portion of the image at a particular DPI, or if you want to crop out just a 600x400 section for web posting.
5) My favorite - because I always go for a Aspect Ratio, whether 4x6 for print or 600x400 for web shots. Probably the most difficult way, really.


Next tutorial, when I get a chance, will be resizing. There's more to cropping than I thought....

Luckily resizing is very easy.

[tommykjensen]

Thanks Scottes.

I thought cropping was simple but I learned a few new things here. I had always been annoyed that I could not set the specific size when cropping.

[IanD]

Another fine and informative post.

[RonS50]

Scottes keep them coming :D even thou I don't post much I read every tutorial you have done (sometimes 3 or 4 times :oops: ) These are very good learning tools and just wanted you to know they are appreciated. Would also like to extend the same thoughts to Mr Chevy for his efforts along the same lines.

[Big_B]

I read every tutorial you have done .

Me too. What's the next one gonna be? :) :shock:

[Scottes]

I read every tutorial you have done .

Me too. What's the next one gonna be? :) :shock:

Ian, Tommy, Big_B, Ron: Thanks guys.

I was actually pretty shocked that cropping would be so big. This *was* going to be cropping and resizing, but cropping just got to be too much. Who knew?


The next one...? Probably resizing, since Ian asked. But it might not be until Sunday night since I'm camping this weekend.

Next after that? I'm thinking cloning and healing and such, unless someone comes up with a better idea.


This is a bit of work though, so if everyone could email me 3 or 4 minutes I might be able to get back a few hours to spend on another project which is slipping... :) :) :)

[Scottes]

Another Marquee Tool mini-tip....

Have you ever resized an image and it came out to and "odd" size like 600x401? Or 803x533?

The Marquee Fixed Size is good for this: Set it to 600x400 exact and click anywhere and crop.


OK, maybe most people don't care if it's a pixel off. It bugs me though. :D

[tommykjensen]

OK, maybe most people don't care if it's a pixel off. It bugs me though. :D

Yeah I noticed that 2 weeks ago when I processed my shots from the carnival - it annoyed me.....

[chris.bailey]

Nice series scottes. I feel there is a book in there waiting to get out :lol:

[Scottes]

While browsing around gmitchel's site (http://www.thelightsright.com/DigitalDarkroom/DigitalDarkroom.htm) I came across something about Tool Presets that he created for PS 7.0. I'd never heard of these, so I poked into Photoshop CS and these things are darn handy.


Choose your Marquee Tool, and set it to Fixed Size 800x533 pixels:
http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/toolbar.gif

Now over on the right click on the Tool Presets flyout menu:
http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/presets.gif

Click on the New Preset button (circled in red) and give it a descriptive title, like "Fixed 800x533" and click OK. Now I can just choose the Marquee, click on Tool Presets, choose my "Fixed 800x533" and click in the image and get a set size selection.

Pretty cool, huh?

I added a bunch of common ones that I use:
http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/lotsapresets.gif


This is even cooler with the Crop Tool if you like the Crop & Resize trick from above.

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/cropresize.gif

Save it to a preset, and it will let you crop what you want (at a fixed aspect ratio) and resize it, just as described above.

When you add it you'll see that Photoshop already has some pre-made ones for prints:

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/croppresets.gif


Pretty cool, huh?

Thanks, Gmitchel!

[chris.bailey]

thats not just cool, its sub-zero ! Cant wait to get home and try it out.

[Nabil-A]

Cant thank you enough for this tutorial.

[ajm0411]

Thank you for the Cropping tutorial. I have one question related to fixing the height and width and ppi. When you enter 300, for example, as the ppi is that doing a resampling? I am confused with what I read regarding what workflow to use when I want a 4x6 in picture at 400 ppi (the costco printer i send to indicates it wants 400 ppi). Should resampleing be avoided if possible?

[Scottes]

To get 5x6 @ 400 dpi enter the fields as "5in" "6in" and "400" - if you just do 5, 6, and 400 it defaults to pixels.

Resampling is fine, though you usually have to be careful about resizing up too much. The above will resize & resample when you choose to Crop.

[George7]

Excellent tutorial as always. Just to note 2 small advantages to using the cropping tool that havn't been mentioned.
(1) It's very simple to rotate the slection to be cropped - just click and drag mouse out the selected area - great to straighten slightly off angle horizons. This can also be done with the marquee selection but involves the further step of 'transform selection'.
(2) If you crop a floating layer rather than background layer the crop tool gives the option of 'hide' as well as 'delete' which means the area cropped out is still existing in the file (until flattened) - you can move the image around within the cropped frame using the move tool for further fine tuning if required later.

[ajm0411]

Thank you again. The light bulb finally came on. When i did get the picture to 4x6 at 400 ppi and sent it to the my HP 2410 printer, on 4x6 paper, it cut off some pixels at top and bottom of picture and it printed wider than 6in. On the screen in PS 7 it looked fine, but when printed it appeared it was too big to fit on 4x6 paper. I tried changing some of the print preview settings but nothing caused the picture to appear as it is on screen, except when i printed at 98%. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Update since original question: I think I found my answer on HP support page. I will try out tonight. Link to article is below:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?dlc=en&lc=en&product=303756&lang=en&cc=us&docname=c00054973

[askohen]

Is there any advantage to croping in ACR rather than PS, other than the fact that any derivitive from the RAW file will be cropped?

[Scottes]

Mainly resulting file size, but that's a darn good reason. If I know that I am going to work on a smaller file and only that aspect ratio then I'll always crop in the RAW editor. The problem that you'll have to watch out for is if you are going to output various sizes, like printing an 8x10 and 11x14 and maybe even a 4x6. You'll then have to plan well to be able to handle all outputs because of the different aspect ratios. If this is the case I won't crop until just before I output. I'll do all my processing once, then crop and sharpen and print.

[yb98]

I prefer the cropping tool of C1 because you can set an aspect ratio for the cropping without having to resize. But since I don't like to crop during the raw conversion I found another method with photoshop by combining the crop and the marquee tool in a 2-pass cropping process:

First, I use the crop tool and crop without boring about the aspect ratio and without resizing. Just to remove what I don't like from the pic.

Then I use the marquee tool on the cropped pic with a specific aspect ratio. So I have just to move the marquee rectangle and place it as I like to obtain the aspect ratio I want.

I think this method ensure to loose a minimum from the pic while removing all what you don't want.

[sorashell]

I can't tell ya how tickled I was to learn this stuff! Thanks!

[Rezarf]

this is excellent, learning so much.

Thanks
Rezarf

[nickybegood1998]

Thanks so much. I wish I had found this thread about 2 months ago while I was pulling my hair out.

Karman

[shiwi]

wow, and all this time i thought the only way to do it was with the marquee tool. thank you so muchhhhh! =)

[90blackcrx]

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/5709_cropresize.gif

I selected the Crop tool, and entered the important information: 7 in x 5 in (I literally typed "7in" in the first box - typing just a "7" gave me pixels, which is not desired!) and then set the resolution to 300 DPI.

Great thread, but isn't the pixels/inch ppi and not DPI ?

[Scottes]

Yes, PPI is correct, but "DPI" is so often used incorrectly that I usually fall into the trap of using DPI when I mean PPI. It's something I've been working on - I wrote this tutorial 2.5 years ago...

[jgjulio]

Another great tutorial Scottes. Thank you. Well done.

[chet79]

cheers very much :)

[alphonsis]

just wanted to say thanks to op for this tutorial. It was very helpful.