Crop and straighten your photos in a few quick steps.
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Introduction
When you take a photo, you frame it with your camera.
When you edit a photo, you get another chance to frame it by cropping.
I'm Jan Kabili from Adobe's Learn team.
In this tutorial, I'll show you how to crop a photo in just four basic steps using Photoshop's powerful crop features.
Selecting the crop tool and understanding the crop boundary
The first step is to select the Crop Tool in the Toolbar.
Now there's a crop boundary around the image.
This boundary will tell Photoshop what to keep and what to crop away when you complete the crop.
Step two is to set the shape of your crop boundary.
Setting crop shape, aspect ratios, and straightening
You can drag any corner of the boundary to change its width and height, and if you hold the Shift key as you do this, the boundary will retain its original proportions.
Or you could just drag any corner of the boundary without holding the Shift key.
You can also drag any edge of the boundary independently to get just the shape that you want.
And if a photo needs straightening, you can move your cursor outside the boundary and then drag up or down and try to line up content like this horizon with the small grid that appears.
An alternative way to set a crop boundary is to specify an aspect ratio.
An aspect ratio isn't a particular size, instead, it's the proportion of width to height.
If you want to crop to an aspect ratio that's common for a photo, open this dropdown menu, go to the second section, and choose an aspect Ratio like 1 : 1 for square.
You can change the size of the square crop boundary by dragging any edge, but it's 1 : 1 aspect ratio will stay the same.
Now that you've got your crop boundary set,
Positioning the image using composition guides
step three is to position the image inside the boundary.
As you do this, remember that everything you leave outside the boundary won't appear in the cropped image.
To position the image, click inside the boundary with the Crop Tool and drag the image where you want it.
If you like, you can use the overlay of intersecting lines known as the rule of thirds to help you position the image.
Placing a point of interest where any two lines of this grid intersect, like here, can draw attention to the subject and often creates a balanced and pleasing composition.
You're almost done.
But there's one more crop option I'd like to show you.
If you uncheck Delete Cropped Pixels up here in the Options bar,
Using non-destructive cropping and finalizing the crop
Photoshop won't permanently delete the pixels outside your crop boundary when you commit the crop.
So the next time you click on the photo with the Crop Tool, the area outside the crop boundary will reappear, much like it appears here, and you'll be able to reedit your crop.
This can be useful when you're not yet sure that your crop is final.
And now you're ready for the fourth and last step, which is to commit the crop that you set up.
To commit the crop click this big checkmark in the Options bar or you could just press Enter or Return on your keyboard.
And finally, it's a good idea to click the Clear button in the Options bar so that the crop ratio you set doesn't affect things the next time you use the Crop Tool.
And you're done.
Congratulations on completing this crop in just four steps.
You selected the Crop Tool, you set up the crop boundary, you positioned the image inside the crop boundary, and finally, you committed the crop.
Now that you know how to perform a basic crop in Photoshop, give these cropping techniques a try on your own images, to frame your photos just the way you want them.
What you learned
Start your crop
Select the Crop tool to create a crop boundary. The boundary identifies what to crop away and what to keep.
Adjust the crop boundary
Define your crop by dragging the edges or corners of the crop boundary. To crop to a specific width to height ratio, choose it from the Aspect Ratio menu or enter it in the Options bar.
Position your photo inside the crop boundary
Click on the photo and drag to move the photo where you want it inside the crop boundary. If the photo doesn’t look straight, click outside the crop boundary and drag to rotate the photo.
Commit the crop
Before you finalize the crop, consider unchecking the Delete Cropped pixels option. If you do, you’ll be able to bring back the cropped pixels and change your crop settings later. When you’re ready to perform the crop, just click the checkmark in the Options bar or press Enter or Return.
Now you can crop any photo to frame it the way you want it!
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