Cropping in Photoshop-CS

[RTMiller]

This might be a silly question but I'm not very experienced with PS-CS...
When I am cropping a picture, is there a way to know what the dimensions of the crop are before I actually crop it? In other words, if I have a 3200x1500 image, how can I pull a 1280x800 crop out of that picture. I hope that makes sense...

[PacAce]

There might be other ways to do it but what I do is select the Rectangular Marquee Tool and set the Style (below the menu bar) to Fixed Size. I'll then set the Width and Height to the appropriate pixel dimensions. When you click anywhere on the image, you'll get a rectangular selection of the exact dimensions you specified. Move the selection where you want it. Then just click Image > Crop and, voila, an image cropped and sized the way you wanted. :)

[RTMiller]

You are an ACE! That's perfect. Thanks.

(My brother used to live in Whitehall, now he lives in Allentown).

[KevC]

While cropping, you can select the dimensions (5x8) in photoshop... then resize to your desired dimensions.

[EricKonieczny]

What I do, is Use a Fixed Aspect Ratio Tool Preset, that way you can crop it to any size using a 3:2 Horizontal: Veritcal Ratio. or a 2:3 Vertical: Horizontal Ratio.

I like to keep my normal apsect ratio of my 20D.


Select Rectangular Marquee Tool
In Style: Choose Fixed Aspect Ratio
Choose: Width 3, Height 2
Go over to the left and select New Tool Present and Name it: Horizontal


Select Rectangular Marquee Tool
In Style: Choose Fixed Aspect Ratio
Choose: Width 2, Height 3
Go over to the left and select New Tool Present and Name it: Vertical


Now you just choose the right Tool Preset whenever you want to crop a picture.