STEP BY STEP TRANSFORM IMAGES WITH CROP TOOL

This useful Photoshop tool means the end of edge distractions and those wonky horizons

01 EXTRA CROP TOOLS

Cropping features can be found in several commands. If you have a bunch of scanned slides with messy edges, you can use File > Automate > Crop and straighten photos. Image > Trim can also be useful, as it lets you crop all areas that are the same as the bottom left or top right pixel colour. Image > Reveal All can also be helpful for cropping out to the entire original frame.

02 DELETE OR NOT?

This makes the crop tool non-destructive. Rather than erasing edges, it hides them. If you make a crop and decide to change it, click on the tool, and you’ll see the edges you removed earlier are still available. As such, it’s like making crops in Camera Raw or Lightroom. If you want to retain these hidden areas after closing the image, you can save the file as a Photoshop document (psd).

03 CONTENT-AWARE FILL

This lets you add more pixels around the edges by cropping outside the bounds of the original image. It will employ Photoshop’s content-aware feature to generate new pixels based on the surrounding areas. It can be useful if you want to rotate a frame without losing pixels, or tweak the positioning of the subject to match up with compositional guides.

04 CROP TOOL BASICS

To crop edges, grab the Crop tool and drag the box inwards. Hover just outside the corner point to rotate the image, and hit X to switch between a horizontal or vertical orientation. Hold Shift to constrain the proportions as you drag the box in or out, or Alt to resize universally from the centre. To fix unwanted tilt, grab the straighten tool in the options and plot a line along a natural vertical or horizontal line in shot.

05 COMPOSITION GUIDES

There are several compositional rules when composing in-camera or cropping. These state that when you position elements along certain lines or points, you can create a balanced frame. The most well-known is the rule of thirds, but others, like the golden spiral, can be useful. While cropping, hit O to cycle through the overlays, and press Shift+o to change the orientation of the overlay.

06 PREPARE FOR PRINT

The Crop tool is hugely useful for preparing images for print or resizing them for any other kind of output. Click the dropdown and choose width, height and resolution. If you want to make an A4 print, you can set the width to 297mm, height to 210mm and resolution to 300 pixels per inch, then crop. If you use specific print sizes often then it’s worth saving the dimensions as a crop preset via the dropdown.