Crop

If we want to remove parts of a picture, we use the “Crop”.

To crop a picture, we have two possibilities.
A first possibility is by means of the “Crop” tool (1).  When the tool is selected, we find 3 fill boxes and the “Front Image” and “Clear” buttons in the top option bar.

If you want to crop the image to a particular size, you give it in the “Width” and “Height” boxes. If you want to change the values

in the “Width” and “Height” boxes in a quick way, click the button with two arrows between the boxes.

If you want to delete the values in the boxes, click this button.

If you want to crop the image without resampling, you ensure that the “Resolution” box in the options bar is empty.

If you wish to change the number of pixels of an image based on the dimensions and resolution of another image, open the other image, select the “crop” tool and click the “Front Image” in the options bar. Then make it the active image to crop it.

To crop an image, click and drag in the image with the “Crop” tool.   The dark area around the frame is cut away, the bright part (the marquee) remains.

If you want to move the marquee, then place the cursor in the frame and drag it to the desired position.

If you wish to modify the size of the bounding box, then click and drag the pieces (handles) on the edge of the frame (1). If you want to keep the proportions, hold your Shift key down while you drag a corner handle.

If you want to rotate the marquee, position the mouse pointer outside the bounding box when the pointer becomes a curved arrow, click and drag it up or down. If you wish to rotate the bounding box on a different rotation point, drag the circle (2) in the middle of the marquee to the desired rotation point.

If you have you selected a marquee, then you will find a modified top option bar (3).   It consists of two parts. You have the options on the left and you have the options on the right.

On the right we find the checkbox “Shield”. When this is ticked, you see the dark color of the unselected area. If you want to change this color, click the color picker.

If you want to change the cover of this shield, to make it more or less transparent, then change the value in this box.

About the box “Perspective”, we will discuss it in the next lesson.

If you want to cancel the crop, click the last button in the options bar.

If you wish to complete the cropping, click the “Finish” button (4).

Now a word about the left part of the options bar.
Here we find two options, “Delete” and “Hide”.  These options are only used when we do not crop a background layer.

So you have only a background layer in your image, we will first make a “normal” layer.

Double-click the background layer in the “Layers” and in the dialog box that appears, click the OK button. That is all.
When you crop a photo, the excess portion is cut away, this is the standard procedure. However, with the “Hide” option, the excess portion is not cut away, but hidden.  This way you can always bring back the cut away part by clicking the “Image” button in the menu bar and selecting “Show All” in the drop-down menu.
Attention! This only works when the “perspective” option is not selected in the options bar.

A second way to cut out from a photo is by means of a selection.
The first thing you do is make a selection (1), it does not matter with what tool.

In this example I choose the “Elliptical Marquee” tool.

Then click the “Image” in the menu bar and select “Crop” in the menu bar.

This will cut away everything that falls outside the selection section (2). In a rectangular shape that is.

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