Comments on: Using the Crop & Straighten Tool in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

By: Nathan Griffin

Nathan Griffin — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 12:15:38 +0000

Mike, Thanks for the tip about using the ‘x’ key to swap between portrait and landscape mode when in crop mode – that is the shortcut I have been looking for. Great discussion here on the crop tool and the straighten tool.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 17:38:10 +0000

Using LR3/XP64.

In LR3 the “X” key switches between landscape/portrait modes while cropping. RTFM.

Trying to crop a small portion of a 20MB image is very difficult in LR. LR is suppose to be oriented toward photographers, not graphics designers, so the Crop feature should behave like you are looking through a viewfinder. The crop frame should remain level and full size (or a user selected size) and the image should pan, zoom and tilt behind this frame. To keep both camps happy, there should be a toggle, like the “X” key.

Also, LR should borrow some ease-of-use from Google Earth so in BOTH crop modes, you can zoom with the mouse wheel and rotate by CTRL-mouse wheel, and do fine pan/zoom/rotate movements by simultaneously holding down the ALT key.

By: Igor Levicki

Igor Levicki — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 21:01:14 +0000

Scott,

But I _want_ to move the crop rectangle, not the picture below!

It is counter-intuitive, that is why it takes “a bit of getting used to”.

Imagine that you are working with a rectangular frame and a scalpel, you would not be moving the photo around while keeping the frame in place, wouldn’t you?

It’s one of those examples where software architect tries to be “smarter” than the real life and fails. If at least there was an option to invert the mouse X and Y axis… even first person shooters allow you to set that according to your preference.

Thanks for the explanation on the second one though, for some reason the lock didn’t want to stay on between images.

By: Scott Rouse

Scott Rouse — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:11:17 +0000

Igor,

Good questions.

1. It takes a bit of getting used to, but when you click and drag to “move the crop” you’re not actually moving the crop box around (as one does in Photoshop and many other image-editing programs). Rather you are moving the image behind the cropped area (which stays centered). So, clicking and dragging the mouse towards you does indeed move the image down, as intended.

2. When you lock the aspect ratio to Original by clicking the padlock icon in the Crop tool, that setting is maintained between images. For example, enter the Crop tool, click the padlock to lock to original aspect ratio, crop the image and hit Done. Now move to the next image and enter the crop tool. Your aspect ratio should still be locked to “Original.” You can’t lock the aspect ratio (from photo to photo) to anything other than original because that would automatically crop any photo you entered the Develop Module with. To sync a crop between images, try using the Sync button in the Develop module.

-Scott

By: Igor Levicki

Igor Levicki — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 16:24:57 +0000

Great article, now if you could explain how to:

1. Invert the crop tool’s mouse X and Y axis — it is completely retarded as it is. Dragging the mouse towards me should move DOWN, not UP.

2. Make “Original” (or just about any locked) aspect the default for every photo.

By: Dubtastic | Photography, Digital Art, Tutorials, and Helpful Things…

Dubtastic | Photography, Digital Art, Tutorials, and Helpful Things… — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 16:35:29 +0000

[...] first thing I do is properly align the image with the horizon, making it straight. Lightroom makes this super simple, but if you are in Photoshop and want to do it, I would recommend using guides. View the rulers [...]

By: Saya

Saya — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:54:15 +0000

How do you apply preset only for the region inside the cropped image?

Some presets apply graduated filter from different angle and position. When cropping, the filter position stay in the original image instead of reapplied inside the cropped area.

By: Scott Rouse

Scott Rouse — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:05:19 +0000

Joyce,

Check under the View menu and see what option is checked under the “Tool Overlay” option. It should say “Auto Show” or “Always Show.” If “Never Show” is checked, the crop overlay will…well…never show.

Hope that helps.

-Scott

By: joyce eveler

joyce eveler — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:37:42 +0000

I can’t seem to make the Tool Overlay or Crop Guide Overlay active to use under View. I used to be able to use the third gride, but it’s no longer showing. Please help!

By: David

David — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:39:09 +0000

Dear Lynn,
It certainly is possible to make a 1024×768 sized copy of your original file using Lightroom but the resizing does not happen in the crop tool. Lightroom’s crop tool hides pixels and changes an image’s aspect ratio. To make a new copy, whose physical dimensions are 1024×768 pixels, you need to use the Image Sizing option within the Export dialogue.

Lot’s of folks get confused by this one. The crop tool just tells Lightroom what pixels to show or to hide. Image Size tells Lightroom what physical dimensions to fill for the new file upon export.

Bonus advice: If I were you I would use the “Resize to fit: Width and Height” option in the Image Sizing section.

Hope this helps,
David