Free-form cropping

With other image software, I have been able to take an image and free-hand crop from the left and right to reduce the width of the photo. I do not need to crop to a particular dimension, but crop to the needs of the actual image. Can I do this in Elements? It seems that the cropping tool only defines an area horizontally and vertically at the same time to the dimension you indicate in the option tool bar BEFORE you actually do the cropping. The same is true of the marquee tool, where you must also indicate the dimensions or aspect ratio. I would like to choose the pixels to crop by visual inspection rather than defining a shape or aspect ratio prior to cropping. Is there any way to do this. Hope I am making some sense???? *grin*

Thanks for any input.

In the Option Bar - for either the Rectangular Marquee or the Crop Tool - set the option to Normal. There are three choices, Normal, which would be kind of free form, Fixed Aspect Ratio, and Fixed Size.

Edit: I should have added that you can only do squares, rectangles, and ovals. A true "free form" where you'd get strange shapes would require using one of the selection tools.

Thanks, Beth. What I have had to do is use the rulers to determine what the exact size of the result should be. For example if I had a 4x6 image which (by using the rulers) I determined would be best cropped to 4x5.5", then I type in 5.5" in the width box in the option bar, drag the crop from the upper left (0,0) down until I get a 4x5.5" shape, then move/position the shape over the middle of the 4x6 image so as to (in effect) crop off .25" on either side.

Edit: I think this basically gives me all the pixels I defined without compression or extrapolation (or whatever it is called).

Peter,

If you leave the HxW fields blank, then you can crop free-hand. Also leave the Resolution field empty.

Byron