Adobe Photoshop CS5 One-on-One

4. Select the crop tool in the toolbox. Click the crop tool in the
   toolbox (see Figure 2-16) or press C for Crop (not to mention
   Clip, Cut, and Curtail).


5. Draw the crop boundary. Drag inside the image window to
   draw a rectangle around the portion of the image that you want
   to keep. Because you’ve rotated your view of the image, the up-
   right crop boundary will appear at an angle, along with the rest
   of the photograph, as in Figure 2-17.

You can adjust the position of the crop boundary on-the-fly by pressing

and holding the spacebar. But don’t get too hung up on getting things

exactly right. You can easily move and resize the crop boundary after

you draw it, as demonstrated in Step 7.

The moment you release the mouse button, you enter the crop

mode. From now until you press Enter (Return) or Esc, most of

Photoshop’s commands and panels are unavailable. You have

made a commitment to cropping.

Figure 2-16.

Figure 2-17.

PeaRl Of WISDOm

In the CS5 version of cropping, when you release
the mouse button after designating the crop, a
grid overlay automatically appears over your
image to help guide your crop. If you’re rotating
an image, it may be useful to have these extra
vertical and horizontal lines. But by default, the
grid is set to a “rule of thirds” display, which is of
marginal use in general and becomes particularly
meaningless and somewhat distracting for
portraits. Hey, creativity and rules just don’t go
together in my book. You can turn off the grid
by going to the Crop Guide Overlay pop-up menu
in the options bar and setting it to None, as I did
here.

48 Lesson 2: Straighten, Crop, and Size