in this video I'll show you how to crop photos using the Photoshop crop tool and explain some
of its many features you'll find the crop tool in the Photoshop tools pallet on the left of
the interface when you select it you can see its options displayed in the contact sensitive toolbar
at the top of the interface the First Choice you need to make is to decide if you want to
crop the image to a ratio or a size to explain the difference let's select the 16x9 crop ratio from
the drop-down list the grid overlay then appears on the image indicating the crop area I can
then apply this by clicking the tick mark in the Photoshop toolbar now let's check the image size
by selecting the image menu and then the image size option this tells us that the image is 5,184
pixels wide this is the same width as the original image all that's changed is the image height which
was reduced when I cropped the image I'll undo that now by pressing command and Zed on my keybo
keyboard to show you the other option if you're using a Windows PC that's control and Z this time
I won't select the ratio in the drop-down instead I'll choose an image size using the width and
height option now we see three boxes where we can enter the image width height and resolution let's
enter the image size of 1920 x 1080 pixels but I won't enter a new resolution that will leave the
image at its existing resolution when I make the crop as I enter the height and width values we see
the crop overlay we saw earlier the overlay looks the same as before because the dimensions have
entered are still in the ratio of 16 to9 I can then apply my crop by clicking the tick mark again
notice this time that the image is reduced in size it now measures only 1920 pixels wide rather than
the 5,184 pixels it measured before I'll undo that now by using the edit menu and clicking
the undo option I can also use the shortcut again of command and Z on a Mac or control and Z on a
Windows PC let's leave the crop size set to 1920x 1080 pixels but this time I'll click on the image
and drag using my mouse as I do this the crop area appears as a dotted outline then when I release
my mouse button we see the crop overlay again if I don't select the correct area I can click and
drag the image using my Mouse this repositions the image inside the crop area if you don't like
repositioning the image and would prefer to move the crop area press p on your keyboard you're then
able to move the crop rather than the image press P again and you return to repositioning the image
also if you haven't made the crop quite the right size you can click and drag the handles on the
corners and along the edges this resizes the crop area but notice it keeps the images aspect RTI
itio so that each side is resized in proportion for example if I click and drag the top left
corner the bottom right corner stays in the same location but we can also change this Behavior by
holding down the option key on our keyboard on a Windows PC that's the ALT key this time when
we resize the image it's resized from the center when you think you have the crop in the correct
position check by hiding The Unwanted area of the image you can do this by pressing a on your
keyboard pressing h a second time then makes the image visible again finally I can click the tick
mark in the toolbar to apply the crop or press enter on my keyboard the crop tool in Photoshop
also comes with several predefined presets when we select one of these it sets the width and height
option in the toolbar and there's also one of these for the ratio we can also create new crop
presets by selecting the new preset option in the drop-down list this displays the dialogue where I
can enter the name of the new preset Photoshop prepopulates this with the dimensions that I
entered in the toolbar when I'm happy with the name of the preset I can click the okay button the
preset then appears in the drop-down list in the tool bar let's undo the crop we applied to this
image so I can show you a few more features first I can clear the crop tool settings by clicking
the clear button in the toolbar now let's select the preset that we've just created notice this
two Arrow icon between the fields when I click this icon it switches the values in the fields
so we have a vertical crop when I click it again it switches them back the crop tool also has a
handy straighten tool which you can use to level the image I can activate this by clicking the
level icon in the toolbar I can then click on the horizon in my image and drag whilst holding down
the mouse button this allows me to draw a line along the horizon and when I release the mouse
button Photoshop rotates the image to ensure The Horizon's level it's also possible to rotate the
image manually by positioning your mouse pointer outside the crop area then you can click and drag
to rotate the image around its Center Point whilst we've been cropping our image we've been using a
rule of thirds overlay this divides the image into three sections vertically and horizontally it's a
common compositional technique photographers use but we ar restricted to just this overlay there
are others that we can use which you'll find in the dropdown list in the toolbar you can
also cycle through the overlays by pressing the letter O on your keyboard but perhaps you don't
like seeing the overlay at all in which case you can hide it using the dropdown I have mindset to
always be shown but hiding it means it's never shown a halfway house is to show it automatically
this means it's only visible when you click and drag to resize or reposition it on the image you
might also notice in the toolbar that we have an option to delete the cropped pixels when
we use this it means that any pixels we crop are permanently deleted from the image but if we don't
tick it and then we click on the image again using the crop tool this displays the crop overlay and
you can see the original image outside of the crop area this allows me to resize the crop to recover
some of the hidden image you can even crop outside of the area of the image when I make the crop
overlay larger than the image that area becomes transparent which is what this pattern means what
appears in this area is controlled by the dropdown to the right of the toolbar the transparent option
is selected by default but we can also switch to the generative expand option this uses photoshop's
new AI generative capability but I'll save that for another video the other option is the content
aware fill when I select that and resize a crop area outside the image Photoshop generates new
content to fill the empty area the content aware feature is excellent and it's available in other
places in Photoshop watch for this video next and I'll show you yet another way to use it thanks
for watching today and I hope you've enjoyed the video remember to subscribe if you haven't already
and please share this with other Photoshop users I'll see you soon for another video