- Cropping Photos
- Auto-Cropping to Standard
- Cropping to an Exact Custom Size
- Cropping into a Shape
- Auto-Cropping Gang-Scanned Photos
- Cropping without the Crop Tool
- Using the Crop Tool to Add More Canvas Area
- Straightening Crooked Photos
- Using a Visible Grid for Straightening Photos
- Resizing Digital Camera Photos
- Resizing and How to Reach Those Hidden Free Transform Handles
- The Cool Trick for Turning Small Photos into Poster-Sized Prints
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Cropping without the Crop Tool
Sometimes it's quicker to crop your photo using some of Elements' other tools and features than it is to reach for the Crop tool every time you need a simple crop. This is the method I probably use the most for cropping images of all kinds (primarily when I'm not trying to make a perfect 5x7", 8x10", etc.—I'm basically just “eyeing” it).
Step One
Start by opening a photo you need to crop and press M to get the Rectangular Marquee tool from the Toolbox. (I use this tool so much that I usually don't have to switch to it—maybe that's why I use this method all the time.) Drag out a selection around the area you want to keep (leaving all the other areas outside the selection that you want cropped away).
)
Step Two
Choose Crop from the Image menu.
)
Step Three
When you choose Crop, the image is immediately cropped. There are no crop handles, no dialogs—bang—it just gets cropped—down and dirty, and that's why I like it. Just press Control-D to deselect.
)
)
)
)
){kind=link}