Image Cropping in Lightroom

Hello,

I am using Lightroom 5 and have a question regarding cropped. A lot of times, I am zoomed into an image and cleaning it up when all of the sudden I pan a section of the image that I really like and would like a copy cropped as such. When I select the crop tool, I zooms out to the full image. A lot of times, I lose that particular crop and can no longer find that exact same area I was looking as. Even a few mm here and there makes a big difference to how the crop looks.

If there a way to crop to the visible area of the image without having to manually select the area again. Once cropped to the visible area, I can create a virtual copy with this crop and work on the rest of the image by redoing the crop.

Thank you.

Nope, no way. The tool always zooms out. People have been complaining about this forever, because sometimes you want to do a very accurate crop and the only way is to crop, close the tool, examine the image at 1:1, open the tool, adjust the crop, etc., etc., etc.

Ah man. This is sad to hear. I wish there was a way to do this.

Some times you just cannot see the same crop again.

Hmm, pressing the "r" key will alternate you between having the crop tool open and closing it. It doesn't "solve" your problem, but at least it's a quick way to switch views.

tonylong wrote in post #16844247
Hmm, pressing the "r" key will alternate you between having the crop tool open and closing it. It doesn't "solve" your problem, but at least it's a quick way to switch views.

Thank you Tony. That helps. Is there a way to zoom in while being in the crop mode? Even though I can switch back and forth using "r", I cannot easily make the same crop unless I can zoom in and be sure it is same. For example, if I am cropping a necklace, I need to be able to see the details of the tiny stones to ensure same crop.

Thanks.

Baadil wrote in post #16844332
Thank you Tony. That helps. Is there a way to zoom in while being in the crop mode? Even though I can switch back and forth using "r", I cannot easily make the same crop unless I can zoom in and be sure it is same. For example, if I am cropping a necklace, I need to be able to see the details of the tiny stones to ensure same crop.

Thanks.

Well, that's the part where you'll have to just visually "wing it", since when you're in the crop tool you can't zoom in/out. You can "flick" between your zoom options (with the crop tool off) with Ctl-"-" and Ctl-"+/=" so between those and the "r" view you may be able to quickly narrow things down...

One other close crop "view" in the Develop module is the "preview" available in the top of the Detail panel (the one with Sharpening and Noise Reduction). You might actually find this useful -- by default it shows a 100% view of the center of the image, but you can both move the view around the image and you can also click on the little rectangle to adjust the "zoom area", all while either in the "normal" view or with the crop tool open -- mess around with it!

Thank you Tony.