PE2 crop tool

M
Posted By
mike
Sep 29, 2003
Views
187
Replies
7
Status
Closed
When I crop a photo in PE2 I often need to trim the edge of the picture. However PE2 always seems to snap to the very edge, making it difficult or impossible to shave off a small portion of the edge. How do I prevent PE 2 from "snapping".

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PD
Pete D
Sep 29, 2003
Mike,

Hold the control key down while moving the crop selection and you will have closer control.

PeteD
BG
Byron Gale
Sep 29, 2003
Mike,

You probably have "snap to grid" selected (I believe that’s the default setting).

In addition to Pete’s suggestion, which is the way you momentarily defeat "snap to grid", you can turn it off altogether under the View menu, by clicking "sanp to grid" to remove the check-mark.

Byron
M
mike
Sep 29, 2003
I SEE, thanks. I looked everywhere (well not quite everywhere, obviously) for some reference to snapping.

Thanks again.
P
Phosphor
Sep 29, 2003
Mike, some of us use a different method of cropping a picture. I wouldn’t say it’s better than using the Crop tool, but there are some advantages. I’ll post it, and you can decide if it suits you any better.

Select the Rectangular Marquee tool, and then in the Option Bar change from Normal to Fixed Size. Then set the width and height that you want as the finished size of your photo. Click on the image, and a selected area will appear that’s the exact size you chose. You can move this around with the mouse button held down within the selected area until you get the ants surrounding the part you want to keep. Then go to Image>Crop.

I prefer this method because there’s no "discoloration" of the unselected areas, and it also avoids issues of resampling that can occur under some circumstances when using the Crop tool. It’s also easier to back up. With the Crop tool, you have to use Escape; with the Rectangular Marquee tool you can deselect an area using Control/Command D. Not a big deal, but it comes more naturally to me.

Using this method also makes for an easier transition to learning how to do elliptical crops. For some reason Adobe didn’t include that as an option for the Crop tool.
P
Phosphor
Sep 29, 2003
Beth,

I wholeheartedly agree with you in preferring to crop using the rectangular marquee the way you describe.

I didn’t even think to address the practice of cropping… since the snap-to-grid affects so many of the tools, I was intent on describing how he could control it.

For those that do prefer the crop tool, but object to the "discoloration" of the unselected areas, that is a user-selectable option. Once you have drawn a crop area, the option bar allows you to select or deselect the cropping shield, change it’s color and change its density. On those occasions when I do use the crop tool, I prefer to have the shield visible — for me it is helpful to accent the portion of the image I am keeping.

Another example of Elements’ ability to adapt to user preference!

Byron
HB
Haney, Beth
Sep 29, 2003
Well thanks for that little tip about the cropping shield, Byron. You can tell I haven’t used it much, can’t you?!
MO
Mike_O_Sullivan
Sep 30, 2003
That’s extremely interesting Beth. Thanks a lot, I’ll certainly try it.

Mike

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