How to Crop a Photo in Photoshop

[WendyMay]

Cropping an image in Adobe Photoshop is very easy to do. It's one of the simplest tasks out there. Of course, you'll need to learn a few basics about the process, but those basics are straightforward. In today's tutorial, I hope to teach you much of what you'll need to do your own cropping in this application. Down below, I'll walk you through the entire process. If you have any questions at the end or if you'd like to add something, be sure to contribute below this post.

The Original Image​

I pulled this image off of a free stock photo website (Pexels). I thought it was perfect because the lower portion would be cropped beautifully and the photo would still look good. Take a look.



Basically, my goal is to crop out the entire top portion of the building, leaving the much more colorful lower portion behind.

Exploring the Crop Tool Settings​

To start out, after opening the image in Photoshop, I'll head over to the left toolbar and click on the Crop Tool. This tool can be identified by this symbol:



The moment I select the tool, I'll see an outline with some handles appear on the photo.



For this exercise, I think I'll crop the image 800 pixels wide and 533 pixels high. That's the same proportion a regular photo is, but just smaller overall. To crop this image, I'll need to change some settings in the options bar up at the top of Photoshop, under the menu. To start, I'll click the drop-down box and I'll select W x H x Resolution.



And then I'll fill in the two field to the right of the drop-down with the dimensions I just described.

As you can see, there are many other options I could have chosen, including Ratio, Original Ratio, specific ratios, and specific common sizes. I can also set the resolution I'd like the ultimate cropped image to be, as long as that resolution is lower than the original photo's. You can't increase resolution in image editing, you can only lower it.

All the way to the right of the options bar is a check box called Delete Cropped Pixels. The way Photoshop works is that it protects any areas of an image that are cropped out. It keeps the pixels and data stored behind the scenes. So if you ever wanted to undo your changes, the original photo would be there waiting for you. It's a safety feature. If you were to check the box, Photoshop would delete all the pixels that you crop out. They would be deleted for good, so you'd better be sure you know what you're doing. I just wanted to mention this.

Within the Crop Tool is also a tool that straightens images. If you'd like to learn about this tool, please refer to this post:

https://gaulard.com/forum/threads/53/

Clearing the Crop Tool​

If I was finished cropping my image and wanted to change the settings to something else, I could simply click the Clear button in the options bar. That would erase any settings I added so I could start fresh again.

Cropping the Photo​

Okay, I've got my settings all in place. To move the Crop Tool around the image, I'll click on it once and then drag it where I want it to go. I can also do this with my arrow keys on my keyboard. Sometimes using the arrow keys gives better results when fine movements are called for. For now, I'll drag the Crop Tool to the bottom of the image. As you can see, a grid also formed over the tool. That grid helps a lot when rotating or leveling out an image.



To actually make the crop, I will either double-click the tool itself or simply press the Enter button on my keyboard.

Here's the result of that.

Expanding the Image - Adding a Border​

If you thought that was helpful, just wait for this. For the above crop, I did check the Delete Cropped Pixels box. I wanted the cropped out pixels deleted permanently because I knew I was going to continue work on the picture and I couldn't have the old cropped out parts getting in my way. So now that I've got the wider bottom portion of the photo, I'd like to add a black border around it. To do this, I'll first add a new layer to the file in the Layers panel and make sure the new empty layer is below the image layer. Then, I'll again apply the Crop Tool to the image, but this time, instead of dragging the tool around in search of something to crop, I'll click and drag a top corner and a bottom corner outward, so the tool expands beyond the borders of the image.



Do you see how I've got empty space around the photo now? I could make that space as large as I want, but remember, the final image will still be 800 pixels wide and 533 pixels high, no matter how thick the border is. Now, to apply this border, I'll again press the Enter key on my keyboard. Once that's done, I'll make sure the bottom empty layer is selected in the Layers panel and then I'll use the Paint Bucket Tool and the color black to fill that bottom layer in. This will be my result:



Pretty cool, right?

I think that's enough material for today. There's a lot you can do with this tool in Photoshop, so if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask down below. And if you've got any tips of your own to share, please add those below too. Thanks!

 

[WendyMay]

I wanted to mention one other thing in this thread. To rotate a photo and then crop it, all you need to do is apply the Crop Tool to the image, just like above, and then hover your mouse outside of the tool's borders. I like to hover my mouse outside the corners. When the mouse turns into a curved double arrow, you can click and drag so the image turns. Then, you would crop just like any other image. This is what a rotated photo would look like before it's cropped:

 

[WendyMay]

Cropping a Measurement in Adobe Photoshop​

As they say about Photoshop, there are nine ways to do everything. I’d say that’s a good thing because I like having options. When it comes to cropping, there’s no shortage of how we can get things done. For years and years, I used the Rectangular Marquee Tool to crop my images. I still like that tool for this purpose, but the problem with using it is that once an image is cropped with it, all of the cropped out area is gone. This means that if I crop the edges from a photograph, perform a few steps of editing and then realize that my cropping was inaccurate, I either have to accept that fact or I have to start the project over. You know as well as I do, this is no way to work. It’s amateur and we don’t want to be amateurs. We want to be pros.

In today’s post, I’d like to show you a different method for “cropping” an image. It’s actually not really cropping, but the result is the same. All I’ll be doing is adjusting the canvas size of a file in Adobe Photoshop. To do so though, I’ll be using one small feature of the Rectangular Marquee Tool. It’s a very simple process and it’s one that you may find handy under certain circumstances. You never know when you’ll need a workaround in Photoshop. Situations seems to pop up out of nowhere.

What Would I Like to Crop Out?​

Okay, let’s image that I’d like to crop out a portion of the left side of this image.



Oh, I don’t know, let’s say about an inch off the left side would be good. Let’s pretend that I don’t like the moon in this image and I want it gone. Instead of using the Crop Tool, I could simply resize the canvas. The question is though, by how much? Should I just guess at a pixel amount? I don’t think so.

Measuring With the Rectangular Marquee Tool​

I’m not sure if you’re aware of this or not, but when cropping an image in Photoshop, it’s important that you don’t actually delete any content. The Crop Tool offers a check box in the options bar that asks if you’d like to remove the cropped content forever or if you’d only like to hide it. It’s often recommended that you just hide it because if you ever want it back, it’ll be there for you. If those pixels are permanently deleted, they’re unrecoverable and that’s never a good thing. Unless you’re working on an unimportant one-off photo that you’re quickly posting somewhere online, don’t let Photoshop delete any cropped pixels.

When using a selection tool as a crop tool by selecting an area and then visiting the Image > Crop menu item, the cropped out content is gone forever. This is one of the big problems with using this workflow for cropping. While I used to take advantage of the selection tools for this type of task all the time, through the years, I’ve migrated over to the Crop Tool. It’s a much better solution.

There is a way to keep the pixels if you’d like to use the Rectangular Marquee Tool though and what I’m about to show you does allow for a nice bit of precision.

To measure the distance I’d like to remove from the photo in pixels, I’ll click and drag the Rectangular Marquee Tool from the left side into the image until I’ve covered the area I’d like to cover. The only reason I’m doing this is to read the pixel dimensions in the small black box that appears. Take a look.



By measuring this way, I know the number of pixels in I need to remove from the left side. I could have used the Ruler Tool for this as well, but this is a pretty easy way to go about things.

Changing the Canvas Size​

Before I go any further, it’s critical to convert the layer I’m working on to a Smart Object. If I don’t do this and if I go ahead and change the canvas size, any pixels that are hidden will actually be deleted forever. By converting the image layer to a Smart Object, I’ll be preserving those pixels for later use, if need be.

Okay, now that I know the number I’m after that will remove the moon in the image (660px), I’ll head up to the Image > Canvas Size menu item and click.



This will open up the Canvas Size dialog. Inside it, I’ll make sure the Relative box is checked and then I’ll input the desired value in pixels. Since I want to remove area, I’ll have to put a minus sign in front of the number. So in this case, I’ll type -660 as the Width value. Then, I’ll move the center anchor point to the right by clicking on one of the right side boxes. Finally, I’ll click the OK button to accept the changes.

This is what the result will look like.



The best part about this process is that if I ever want to see what I “removed” again, I can use the Crop Tool and stretch the handles on the left, farther to the left. Take a look. The hidden content is still back there. It’s just out of sight.



And there we have another method for cropping and working with images inside of Adobe Photoshop. If you have any questions regarding this post or this technique, please ask in the comment section down below or in the Photoshop discussion board. Thanks for reading!