How to Crop an Image in Photoshop?

Last Updated : 21 Aug, 2021

Adobe Photoshop is a raster-based image editing software. It is developed by Adobe.Inc and available for both macOS and Windows operating systems. You can use Photoshop to create or edit images, posters, banners, logos, invitation cards, and various types of graphic designing work. It provides various tools for designing and editing and the crop tool is one of them. In this article, we will discuss what is crop tool is and how we use it.

Crop tool

Cropping an image basically removes unwanted portions from the image, thus making the wanted portion more prominent and clear. The Crop tool allows the user to select an area of an image and discard everything outside this particular area. It reduces the size of the image. The crop tool is present in the section along with the slice and select slice tools. The symbol of the crop tool as it appears on the tool palette of Adobe Photoshop is shown below:

How to crop a portion from a photo?

Now let us understand how to use crop tool.

Step 1: Open image in the photoshop.

Step 2: Now select crop tool from the tool palette.

Step 3: After clicking on the crop tool, we can see a rectangle figure(also known as cropping border) around the image.

We can drag this rectangle to select only the needed portion like as shown in the below image:

Step 4: Press enter and automatically the non selected portions gets deleted as shown below:

So this is how we use crop tool.

Options of Crop Tool:

Now we will understand the properties/ option of crop tool. When we select crop tool the following option bar will appear below the menu bar:

1. Reset crop tool

This option is used to reset the values of crop tool to the default values. So to use this option right click on the crop icon present in the menu bar and choose the required option.

2. Size and proportion

This drop down menu contain different types of aspect ratios(as shown in the image). These options allow us to set the size of the crop box. By default, it is set to ratio.

3. Clear

It is used to clear the dimension of aspect ratio.

4. Straighten

This option allows the user to straighten the tilted image. It can also be used to rotate the image to the desired orientation.

5. Set overlay

When you click one the image with the crop tool to adjust the cropping border or crop box, you will see some grids appear inside the cropping border. It is known as rule of thirds. These grids are used to create a better photo composition. Photoshop supports different types of overlay option like, Rule of Thirds, Grid, Diagonal, Triangle, Golden Ratio, Golden Spiral, etc. The default it is set to Rule of Thirds.

6. Additional settings

This option contains addition setting options for crop tool and the settings are:

Use Classic Mode: This option is used when you want to use the crop tool that is available in the previous version of Photoshop. By default, this option is unchecked.
Show Cropped Area: When this option is checked it will display the area that is cropped. If this option is unchecked, then only the final portion is previewed.
Auto Center Preview: This option allows to place the preview in the center of the canvas. By default, this option is checked.
Enable Crop Shield: This option uses the crop shield to overlay the cropped portion with a tint. You can also change the color and opacity according to your requirement.

7. Delete Cropped Pixels

When we crop the image the area outside the crop border was deleted. But if we want to find the deleted area, then it is frustrating. So to preserve the deleted area, uncheck the Delete Cropped Pixels option. So, that we can adjust the crop, according to our requirement and easily bring back the original data of the image. By default, this option is checked.

8. Content-Aware

Now a days photoshop uses content aware technology. It fills the gaps that created when you use the crop tool for straightening, rotating an image, or expanding your canvas beyond the original size of the image. By default the content aware box is unchecked.