Crop tool in Photoshop..what am I missing?

I am truly a novice when it comes to cropping so bear with me...I have a photo that I would like to crop for 8x10. I put that dimensions after choosing the crop tool. I then drag the crop tool on top of my photo but only a small portion get selected (marching ants)?
It does some limb chops..what am I doing wrong?

In Photoshop's Preferences, are your units set for Pixels or Inches? That MAY make a difference!

Or... Are you specifying a PPI value in the crop tool settings?

And finally... Remember that 8 x 10 is a different aspect ratio than what comes directly from your camera, so you WILL be slicing off pixels. Sometimes it's better to crop the raw file in ACR or LR because the crop is non-destructive to the original image and is reversible. Also, cropping at the raw level can often give you a more accurate white balance.

What do you mean by a small portion? For an 8 X 10 parts of the image won't be included in the crop. If you have important parts of the image all the way out to each side (top, sides,bottom) then some of it will end up in the bit bucket. When shooting you can take this into consideration and zoom out or step back and make sure there is enough space around the subject for cropping.

Leo2008 wrote in post #11052796
I am truly a novice when it comes to cropping so bear with me...I have a photo that I would like to crop for 8x10. I put that dimensions after choosing the crop tool. I then drag the crop tool on top of my photo but only a small portion get selected (marching ants)?
It does some limb chops..what am I doing wrong?

Please help...I know you all know the answer LOL!

You need to specify a unit of measurement. So instead of entering 8 and 10 use 8 in and 10 in instead.

If you have the default unit of measurement set in Preferences to pixels or mm; if you don't explictly state inches in the Crop Tool options bar you will see a much smaller crop than you expected.

EASY! Don't use the crop tool from the toolbar and type in the numbers.

INSTEAD, use the Rectangular Selection tool. Change the Style to Fixed Aspect Ratio and type in the dimensions you want, eg: 10 and 8.

MAKE your selection and position it where you want, THEN do Image-Crop from the menu bar.

See the pic below.

I find it less messy than using the "Crop Tool".
Am.

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^ How on earth is that easier?????

Assuming you're using Photoshop, just use the standard Photoshop preset crop ratios for the crop tool - 4X6 in., 8X10 in., etc., but delete the 300 ppi conversion factor in the "Resolution" area that comes with these by default. It should look something like this:

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Yeah, I suspect the OP may have the ppi figure entered in and the crop just "snaps to" a small image -- just guessin'

The 8x10 image size setting (indeed any setting at all in the crop dialog except free form/custom) in the crop dialog is just a print size. It just defines a fixed dimension, an "aspect ratio" if you will, that will be used to crop your image.

In other words, whatever crop size you specify in Photoshop, you are not limited to the area Photoshop selects as the default size of the crop box for that setting. If you select to apply the Bounding Box ie enable transformation of the crop area, you can drag it to resize and include as much of the image as you want. You can also drag it to position it in whatever part of the image you want.You will just remain in the 8x10 aspect ratio. That is to say, you can not change the length or width independently, but you can change the actual size.

No matter how big you make the crop area, it will still end up being 8x10 in the final print size, but you can include as much of the image as you want in it.