Regarding the usage of the Crop tool vs. the Rectangular Marquee tool for cropping....

You should be aware that they are actually giving you different results, except in one very specific circumstance.

Say, for example, that you wish to crop a 100x200 pixel area.

- using the Rectangular Marquee tool in Fixed Size mode, as soon as you click on your image, a 100x200 selection border appears. You can drag this selection to position it before clicking Image > Crop. The result is a 100x200 section of your ORIGINAL pixels.

- using the Crop tool with the dimensions entered, you are required to drag out your selection. The selection is constrained to the proportion of 100:200. The selection area can be re-sized by dragging the corner handles. When the Crop is confirmed, the result is that the selected area is cropped, and then RESIZED to your specified dimensions, no matter how many original pixels were in your selection. So, if you had actually drawn a 150x300 crop (still correctly constrained proportion), the original pixels would be RESAMPLED down to 100x200. Likewise, a smaller selection of 75x150 would be resampled up to 100x200. In both of those cases, the ppi remains the same as the original... unless you enter a value in the Resolution field for the Crop tool -- which has an additional influence on the resampling done by the tool.

The one instance when both tools will give you identical results is when you leave the Crop Resolution blank, and happen to drag out a selection that exactly matches the proportional dimensions you entered into the Width and Height fields.

FWIW, it can be helpful to have the Info palette displayed when drawing marquees or crop areas, as it shows dynamic selection dimensions.

I feel that both the Rectangular Marquee and Crop tool have usefulness for cropping, depending on your desired result. If you want to avoid resampling, use the Rect. Marquee, or use the Crop tool very precisely. If you desire, or do not care about, resampling, then the Crop tool is appropriate.

Cameron_Cook

Replied in the following topics

Cropping Pictures to a certain pixel size