Camera Raw: How To Easily Crop & Straighten Images
https://www.shutterbuggs.com/ - In this video, we’re going to explore the Crop and Straighten tool in Camera Raw. So to begin with, first let’s go to the tools manual up in the top left-hand corner where you’ll notice the little crop icon. Now, you can either select it using your mouse or press C on your keyboard. The crop tool itself allows you to crop your image however you would like it to be cropped and in any particular format or size.
Now what you’ll notice is if you click on the crop tool icon and hold it down that there is a drop-down menu that is available with several different options. You can also get to this menu by right-clicking on your actual crop itself and what you will notice is that you’ll have a normal setting. Now the normal setting is not constrained by any means so you can actually crop your image however you’d like. Underneath normal you have some predefined ratios that you can use to crop your image. You have one- to- one which is square, two-to-three which is a 35 mil format, three-to-four, four-to-five, etcetera. So if you were to select one of these you’ll notice that it will automatically change the aspect ratio to three-to-two, which is what I selected, or you can actually go and make adjustments to your actual crop however you see fit.
Now the next thing you’ll notice in that drop down menu is that you have custom. Custom allows you to predefine a set ratio or a set size in pixels, inches or centimeters. Now I like to use this to set the final print size of my files. So I like to size my photographs to the largest size that they’ll actually ever get printed, which for example, would be say 36″X24″. So I like to use inches and in this particular case I’d actually like to see this image as a panoramic so I’m going to set that to 36″X12″ which is a three-to-one ratio and if I click OK, there you go, there’s your three-to-one ratio. Now I’m just going to change that up a little bit and open it up a bit more, so there’s my panorama image.
Now you’ll also notice that there are a couple other options. You have constrained to image. This just means that you crop stays within the boundaries of your actual image and doesn’t go outside of them. You also have show overlay, which if you’re familiar with the rule of thirds, it actually breaks your image up into thirds and just gives you some guides that enable you to adjust your crop according to those guides. So with the rule of thirds, it’s just the human eye likes to see things in thirds, so you tend to position elements within your shot in relation to breaking them up into thirds just so it looks visually more pleasing to the human eye.
You also have a couple of other options. You have clear crop as well. Now if you don’t want to have to right-click on your mouse to go clear crop, you can also just click outside on the grey area and that will also remove your crop.
Now if you’re ever cropping your image and you’re finding it a little bit difficult to sort of get the horizon to sit straight in your actual crop, because in this example you can actually rotate it, and so for example if you wanted to know whether the horizon was parallel within your image instead of having to go and look at the top here and go, Oh, it’s not quite parallel, make an adjustment, then I’ll move it back, or etcetera, like that. You’ve actually got available to you the straighten tool.
Now the straighten tool is quite neat. If you select the straighten tool by either using your mouse or holding down A on your keyboard, you can actually go and select one point, so select the horizon and drag it across to the otherwise of the horizon, make sure you have it parallel and it will adjust the crop accordingly so that it is parallel with the straighten tool that you’ve just made then. And that wasn’t very obvious, but if I do it again and we’ll just adjust it at a weird angle, you’ll notice there it’s adjusted at the actual crop so it’s parallel with the straighten tool adjustment that I just made. So that is quite neat, especially if your horizon is skewed in your image and you’re just not quite sure whether it’s sitting right for you or not.
Now what you’ll also notice, now that I’ve actually predefined a size for my crop which is 36″X12″ in size… do that again it’s just… there we go. So now that I’ve actually predefined a crop size, once I hit enter on that, it automatically updates the image. You’ll notice down at the bottom here that the actual size is now 36″X12″ in size and you also notice that the histogram has also updated, which is quite interesting.
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