Fixed aspect ratio crop in Photoshop

[puttick]

Hi

I use PS7 - can anyone tell me how to crop to a fixed aspect ratio (say 4:3 or whatever ratio) or a fixed number of pixels (say 1024 x 768 ) rather than trial and error dragging the crop tool around?

I'm sure there must be a simple way, but I can't find it!

Thanks
Nigel

[abat]

And while you're at it could you please tell me how to turn it off. I somehow enabled this capability in Elements 1. While it is usually marvellous, it's sometimes not.

[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.

[tim]

I choose the crop tool, in the option bar I enter 3 for one dimension and 2 for another. I might have to try what Eric said some time. There's usually half a dozen ways to do anything in PS.

[abat]

Thanks Guys. Up and running OK. Amazing what you can miss when it is staring you in the face. It's a really powerful feature.

[puttick]

Thanks - 2 easy methods. Of the two, I prefer the crop method as you can then also rotate the cropped portion, e.g. to correct a tilted horizon.

Now amongst other things I can easily make an image to fit a Windows desktop, without trial and error, or for printing at a standard size. I cannot begin to say how useful this is. Thanks again everyone!

Now - Why on earth can Adobe not make an easy-to-navigate help file?

Nigel