Cropping to Aspect Ratio

BN
Posted By
Bill_Nakielski
Oct 26, 2005
Views
520
Replies
13
Status
Closed
From time to time I need to do some cropping on images and I want the crop to maintain the 4:3 aspect ratio of the original image.

The crop sizes will be variable in each case, such as 2048 x 1536 or maybe 3056 x 2292 or even 1024 x 768. I won’t know that until after I crop. I just want the 4:3 ratio.

Is there a way for the crop selection tool to keep that aspect ratio as I drag it across the image? I do not want to resize or resample until a later operation.

Is this possible?

Thanks,
—
bill n
Related Tags
aspect crop

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JB
John_Bean_UK
Oct 26, 2005
You’ll need to use the marquee tool to crop if you want to avoid resizing. Bizarre that the crop tool can’t do what you want – a simple crop! – but that’s the way it is.

Set "fixed aspect ratio" on the marquee tool, draw the marquee and use Image->crop on the menu.

—
John Bean
DB
David_Biddlecombe
Oct 26, 2005
Errr…. sorry, but nonsense! You don’t need to use the marquee tool to crop without re-sizing, just use the crop tool and make sure the resolution box is blank. Set the width and height to anything in the ratio you want (4 in x 3 in for example – don’t use pixels as the dimensions of course), make sure the resolution box is empty and Bob’s your uncle.

You can also save this as a crop preset so you don’t need to type in the ratio in the future. Much easier to use than the marquee tool for cropping IMHO.
JB
John_Bean_UK
Oct 26, 2005
wrote:
Errr…. sorry, but nonsense!

No need to apologise David, you’re absolutely right.
Sometimes the obvious solution is elusive to some of us 🙁

My only excuse is the tool *implies* that you’re cropping to a fixed size rather than a fixed aspect ratio but if it isn’t resampled then who cares?

—
John Bean
MC
Martin_Coleman
Oct 26, 2005
But if you use dimensions in the crop and say, the sizes you determine are different to the size you crop isn’t that going to resixe the image? Say I put 3 inches by 4 inches in the dimensions and the crop I make is 6 inches by 8 inches of the actual image what happens then? I suppose the question is: if the resolution is left blank there is no resampling at all or wont PS just default to the image resolution and resample/resize anyway?

This has always foxed me.

Martin
EZ
Earl_Zubkoff
Oct 26, 2005
As long as the Resolution field is empty, the Crop tool won’t resample.

Another option for retaining the aspect ratio of any image while cropping is to click the Front Image button, then delete the Resolution value.
P
Photoguy
Oct 26, 2005
wrote in message
Errr…. sorry, but nonsense! You don’t need to use the marquee tool to crop without re-sizing, just use the crop tool and make sure the resolution box is blank. Set the width and height to anything in the ratio you want (4 in x 3 in for example – don’t use pixels as the dimensions of course), make sure the resolution box is empty and Bob’s your uncle.
You can also save this as a crop preset so you don’t need to type in the ratio in the future. Much easier to use than the marquee tool for cropping IMHO.

I’m just trying to learn PS and this is one operation that I just can’t seem to get right either, simple as it may be.

When I use the crop tool as you suggest with the resolution box empty it does indeed crop without resizing, sort of. If I set to crop to for example a 4X5 in ratio it does indeed keep the ratio but after cropping the PPI of the image has changed. An image I just tried starts at 2592 X 1944 pixels @ 180 ppi. I set the crop size to 4X5 in and resolution box empty. The resulting image is 1555 x 1944 pixels @ 38838 ppi. How can I do this without the PPI changing?

Thanks
P
Photoguy
Oct 26, 2005
Sorry that should have said, "The resulting image is 1555 x 1944 pixels @ 388.8 ppi."
BN
Bill_Nakielski
Oct 26, 2005
wrote:
You’ll need to use the marquee tool to crop if you want to avoid resizing. Bizarre that the crop tool can’t do what you want – a simple crop! – but that’s the way it is.

Set "fixed aspect ratio" on the marquee tool, draw the marquee and use Image->crop on the menu.

Sorry to not get back sooner, been away longer than I expected.

John, yours is the only solution I can get to work properly. Last night I tried for over two hours to find a way and couldn’t that’s why I posted here.

No matter if I leave the resolution field blank, or click front image as suggested in other posts the bloody image still resizes.

But now I have a preset in the marquee tool for this, simply make my crop, hit <Alt> <Ctrl> <Shift> C and it’s DONE!!

My thanks to all who responded!!
—
bill n
MD
Michael_D_Sullivan
Oct 27, 2005
With the Crop tool, if you leave resolution blank and put dimensions (e.g., 4in and 6in) in, the cropping marquee can be any size you want (in the 4:6 aspect ratio) and the image won’t be resampled — but it will be "resized" without resampling, in that the image resolution will be changed to allow the selected pixels be displayed in accordance with your chosen dimensions. For example, if you drag the cropping marquee to surround a 4000 x 6000 px area, the resulting image with be 4" x 6" at 1000 ppi; likewise if you drag to surround a 40 x 60 px area, the resulting image will be 4" x 6" at 10 ppi. Just go to Image Size and reset the ppi resolution without resampling.
JB
John_Bean_UK
Oct 27, 2005
On Wed, 26 Oct 2005 16:54:06 -0700,
wrote:
John, yours is the only solution I can get to work properly.

Oh well, not all nonsense then 😉

No matter if I leave the resolution field blank, or click front image as suggested in other posts the bloody image still resizes.

Yes, but it isn’t resampled – the pixels are not changed. But if you want to leave the resolution unchanged – in other words a fixed aspect-ratio *literal* crop with nothing other than the image pixel dimensions changed then the crop tool won’t do it, the marquee tool will.

—
John Bean
DB
David_Biddlecombe
Oct 31, 2005
As Michael and John have pointed out, the confusion comes from what you mean by ‘size’. The real ‘size’ of a digital image file is the pixel by pixel dimension, the ‘size’ in inches or cm is just an arbitray label given to the file showing what size the file would print at given a specified pixels/in.

This can be most easily seen using the image resize dialogue and resizing the image with ‘resample image’ unchecked. For example, a native file from my camera is 3072 x 2048 pixels. That’s arbitrarily tagged as 17.067 in x 11.378 in @ 180 pixel/in. If I change the size to 3 in by 2 in without resampling the resolution just changes to 1024 pixel/in but the pixel size of the image stays at 3072 x 2048.

This is the same thing that happens when you use the crop tool with the resolution box blank. The image will be tagged with a new physical size but no pixels will be added or removed (other than those you crop obviously).

This does cause a lot of confusion though, it’s quite a common misunderstanding. It may be worth Adobe including a crop to ratio option in the crop tool which would do the same job as cropping with resolution unchecked, but would keep the same pixel/in as the file had before, therefore only changing the physical size label by the amount the image was cropped by. This would also mean you wouldn’t have to go into the image size dialogue to readjust the image size if you wanted to keep the same pixel/in, for example if you’re placing in a page layout program.
MD
Michael_D_Sullivan
Oct 31, 2005
Properly, the image should come from the camera tagged at the pixels per inch of the digital image receptor, something on the order of several thousand ppi. However, that might cause problems for some people using less-sophisticated software, which might display and/or print the image at ridiculously small scale. But for professional or prosumer users, this would be a good parallel to the negative, which needs to be scaled to the print size via an enlarger (i.e., image size).
C
chrisjbirchall
Oct 31, 2005
Properly, the image should come from the camera tagged at the pixels per inch of the digital image receptor

I’ve long held the belief that the 72 ppi flag is the camera manufacturers’ "go faster stripe". On first seeing a file size of some 42 or more inches, the uninitiated will say "Wow, big file". Whereas the same file flagged at 300ppi might elicit the response: "Huh! hardly an A4" !!

Chris.

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