Part I: Getting Started with Adobe Photoshop CS5 84 Cropping and Straightening Images In addition to resizing images, you may want to use only a portion of an image and discard or crop the rest. Photoshop provides a great tool that allows you to quickly crop out the unwanted parts of your image. Using the same tool, you can straighten the cropping to fix problems such as a tilted camera. This section discusses some general guidelines that help when deciding how to crop images. You also learn how to use the Crop tool and the Trim utility included with Photoshop to crop and straighten images. Guidelines for cropping a photo Photography is really an art form. A photo that is well composed is interesting to look at, leads the eye of the viewer to the subject, and doesn’t include any distracting elements. All these things can be improved by the right crop. Getting closer to your subject and cutting out background clutter are musts to a good crop, but knowing a few basic photography rules, such as the rule of thirds, helps you to crop your photo to the best advantage. Get rid of background clutter A good reason to crop your photo is to get rid of distracting elements in the background. The sub- ject should be the main focus of any image, and anything else in the image should complement the subject, lead your eye to the subject, and contribute to the “story” being told about the subject. Too many objects, distracting colors, or any other background that draws the eye away from the subject should be cropped out of your photo if possible. Note Cropping is an obvious fix for a busy background, but you have other ways to reduce the impact of a back- ground that can’t be cut out of a photo with the Crop tool. You can cut out your entire background using a Selection tool, you can blur the background, or you can convert the background to black and white. n Preserving aspect ratio Before you pull out your Crop tool and start trimming away, you need to know what you are plan- ning to do with your photo. If you might want to print your photo in more than one size, leave yourself plenty of workable area around the edges of your photo. Don’t create a custom crop size that’s so tight around your subject that you’ll go in later to create a 5x7 print and find that you can’t do it without cropping out part of your subject. Also be aware that standard print sizes such as 5x7 and 8x10 are different aspect ratios, so if you crop your photo to an 8x10 size, you’ll have to trim the edges to make the same photo a 5x7. If you are printing the same photo in multiple sizes, save the original photo, using it to crop each size, and then save each cropped photo individually. 07_584743-ch03.indd 8407_584743-ch03.indd 84 5/3/10 10:17 AM5/3/10 10:17 AM Chapter 3: Image Basics 85 Rule of thirds The “rule of thirds” is a tried and true rule for making your photos visually pleasing, and it’s a very easy rule to follow. The essence of the rule of thirds is that the subject and the horizon in your photo should never divide your photo in half. Instead, they should divide the photo in thirds. Mentally divide your photo into thirds both horizontally and vertically. Ideally, the subject should be off-center in your photograph, directly in one of the intersections of your imaginary lines (power points), if possible. The horizon in your photo should run along the top or bottom line, rather than through the center. In Figure 3.8, for example, you can see that the boy in this photo is almost exactly centered. To improve the composition, I want to make a crop that places him over one-third and down one-third in the shot, as you can see in Figure 3.8. I managed to crop out a distracting background as well. FIGURE 3.8 Cropping an image using the rule of thirds to improve the look Of course, just like any good rule, this one is made to be broken. If your sky is the subject of your photo and much more interesting than the ground, go ahead and place the horizon line one-sixth the way up. The bottom line is that you are the ultimate judge of how your photos should be com- posed. If you like the way it looks, chances are good that others will too. 07_584743-ch03.indd 8507_584743-ch03.indd 85 5/3/10 10:17 AM5/3/10 10:17 AM Part I: Getting Started with Adobe Photoshop CS5 86 Give your subject somewhere to go If your subject is in motion or looking off the frame of the photo, make sure to leave room in your photo for them to move (or look) into. If the viewer of your photo feels like the subject may move out of view at any moment, it leaves them with a sense of unease. Everyone wants to feel like they are in on what happens next. I’ve cropped the photo in Figure 3.9 according the rule of thirds, so it should look great, right? Not at all. In fact, aren’t you just a little worried looking at him that the boy is about to lose his balance and fall down? FIGURE 3.9 Image cropped that doesn’t give the subject somewhere to go Closing in on your subject If you are taking portraits, a good rule of thumb is to close in as much as possible, even to the extent of trimming off the top of the head or the ears. If you want to follow the rule of thirds, use the eyes as the main subject. You can achieve a more engaging and personal photo, as you can see in Figure 3.10. Don’t crop out the story A picture is worth a thousand words, so when you start cropping, make sure you aren’t taking out an important part of the story you want to tell. Close-ups are great, but not at the expense of an interesting environment. The cropped photo on the left of Figure 3.11 leaves the viewer wondering where these boys are and what they are doing. The wider view in the right of Figure 3.11 lets us in on the full story. 07_584743-ch03.indd 8607_584743-ch03.indd 86 5/3/10 10:17 AM5/3/10 10:17 AM Chapter 3: Image Basics 87 FIGURE 3.10 Cropping an image to close in on the subject FIGURE 3.11 Cropping an image too much takes the story element out of the photo. Cropping an image Now that you have a good understanding about how and why to crop images, you are ready to do some cropping in Photoshop. You can crop images in Photoshop in a couple of different ways. The 07_584743-ch03.indd 8707_584743-ch03.indd 87 5/3/10 10:17 AM5/3/10 10:17 AM Part I: Getting Started with Adobe Photoshop CS5 88 most common method is using the Crop tool in the toolbox. However, you also can crop a selec- tion, have Photoshop detect multiple scanned images, and crop them automatically. The following sections discuss using the Crop tool to crop your images as well as cropping using the Selection tools. Automatically cropping scanned images is covered in subsequent sections. Using the Crop tool The Crop tool in Photoshop makes cropping your images easy and quick. To crop an image, sim- ply select the Crop tool from the toolbox and drag the mouse across the area of the image that you want to keep to create a crop box, as shown in Figure 3.12. When you are finished selecting the area, double-click the mouse on the crop box to crop the image. FIGURE 3.12 Cropping an image using the Crop tool in Photoshop Crop box Although the Crop tool is simple and quick to use, it is actually pretty versatile. Additional options are provided in the Options menu of the Crop tool (refer to Figure 3.13). You have these options after the crop box is selected: l Move the crop box: After you have created the crop box, you can use the mouse to adjust the position of the crop box in the image. l Resize the crop box: You can adjust the size of the crop box by using the mouse to drag the corners of the crop box. l Change the center point: Notice the center point icon in the middle of the crop box in Figure 3.12. You can drag that icon to set the center position in the cropped image. The 07_584743-ch03.indd 8807_584743-ch03.indd 88 5/3/10 10:17 AM5/3/10 10:17 AM Chapter 3: Image Basics 89 cropped image won’t be the same size as the crop box if the center position is moved, however, because Photoshop must adjust the size to add enough pixels to adjust for the offset center. l Crop Guide Overlay: A very useful feature of the Crop tool is to have grid lines that help you understand the balance of the area of the photo that you are keeping. The Crop Guide Overlay option in the Crop tool options menu shown in Figure 3.13 allows you to select a Grid, Rule of Thirds, or no overlay. The Grid overlay is useful to simply get a better idea of how the uncropped area of the photo will be spaced after cropping. The Rule of Thirds overlay helps you more easily crop to match the rule of thirds guideline. l Shield Color and Opacity: Another useful feature in the Crop tool options menu is the Shield Color. The Shield Color allows you to cover the area of the image that is going to be cropped with a partially transparent color. This helps you understand what is being clipped out and what is being kept. You can set the overlay color and adjust the opacity to give you the best overall view. Typically, you want enough of the background to show through so you can see what is being removed; however, the less of the background that shows through, the easier it is to see what the results of the crop will be. l Perspective: The Perspective option in the Crop tool options menu allows you to change the perspective of the crop. This is done by selecting the Perspective option and then drag- ging one or more of the corners of the crop box. The crop box is no longer resized in a uni- form manner. Each of the corners moves independently. This results in a skewed box. Keep in mind that the crop still results in a rectangular image. Photoshop calculates that adjusted positioning and changes the perspective of the pixels. To understand the perspective option a bit better, look at the perspective transform discussed in Chapter 19 of this book. Tip When changing the position of the crop box, you can use the arrow keys to move the box one pixel at a time. This allows you to make very small adjustments that are difficult to do with a mouse. n FIGURE 3.13 The options menu of the Crop tool in Photoshop Cropping using the Selection tools Another method of cropping images in Photoshop is to create a selection using the Selection tools and then selecting Image ➪ Crop from the main menu. This crops everything outside a rectangle around the selected area. Cropping an image using a selection has some advantages over using the Crop tool. The Crop tool is limited in shape to a simple rectangle, whereas the Selection tools can quickly select objects of any shape. You can then crop the image to fit only the selected object. Another 07_584743-ch03.indd 8907_584743-ch03.indd 89 5/3/10 10:17 AM5/3/10 10:17 AM Part I: Getting Started with Adobe Photoshop CS5 90 advantage is that you can do several different operations while a selection is highlighted that you cannot do while a crop is highlighted. You do not have the same cropping options available when cropping using a selection. Also, even though the selection is not rectangular, the crop is. Typically, the Crop tool is the best option when you are planning to crop an area of an image. The ability to crop around a selection provides an alternative option for times when you already have an area selected that fits the area that you would like to crop. Straightening an image One of the most common editing tasks when working with images is straightening. Photos taken when the camera was slightly angled, or even on its side, do not look quite right. Photoshop pro- vides several different methods to straighten images that are slightly off. Photoshop provides three basic methods for straightening images. One is to simply rotate the image by a specific angle, another is to rotate the image while you are cropping it, and another is to use the Crop and Straightening utility to batch straighten scanned photos. Rotating and flipping images The easiest way to rotate an image in Photoshop is to select Image ➪ Image Rotation and then select one of the following options from the pop-up menu shown in Figure 3.14: l 180 degrees: Rotates the image around the center axis 180 degrees. l 90 degrees CW: Rotates the image around the center axis 90 degrees clockwise. l 90 degrees CCW: Rotates the image around the center axis 90 degrees counter-clockwise. l Arbitrary: Launches the Rotate Canvas dialog box that allows you to select an angle to rotate the image as well as whether to rotate the image clockwise or counterclockwise. The image size is increased to keep the full original pixels in the rotated version, and any new space that must be added is added as the background color. Note When you rotate an image 180 degrees, the dimensions and pixels do not change. When you rotate an image 90 degrees, the dimensions swap places but the pixels do not change. However, when you rotate an image at an arbitrary angle, the dimensions of the image increase to keep the corners of the rotated image. More impor- tantly, the actual pixels of the original photo are altered slightly because they are no longer aligned in the same direction as they were. Therefore, some data is lost and you may end up with some residual artifacts. You should avoid rotating images several times, because each time leads to more distortion. n l Flip Canvas Horizontal: This flips the entire canvas on its back in the horizontal direc- tion. It results in a mirrored image of the original. This is similar to taking a transparent sheet and flipping it over from left to right. 07_584743-ch03.indd 9007_584743-ch03.indd 90 5/3/10 10:17 AM5/3/10 10:17 AM . Part I: Getting Started with Adobe Photoshop CS5 84 Cropping and Straightening Images In addition to resizing images,. too. 07_584743-ch03.indd 8507_584743-ch03.indd 85 5/3/10 10:17 AM5/3/10 10:17 AM Part I: Getting Started with Adobe Photoshop CS5 86 Give your subject somewhere to go If your subject is in motion or. some cropping in Photoshop. You can crop images in Photoshop in a couple of different ways. The 07_584743-ch03.indd 8707_584743-ch03.indd 87 5/3/10 10:17 AM5/3/10 10:17 AM Part I: Getting Started