select rectangular area that fits in a non rectangular area?

After rotating or barrel distortion correction, the image becomes non rectangular (some white or transparent patches exist at the edges)

Is there a quick way to crop out the junk at the edges so that the image is rectangular again?

The slow way I know is to lay down a rectangular crop area, then zoom in to fine adjust each edge to butt against the unwanted patches. If the image is large this is a time consuming process because the crop region handle is only adjustable at the center of the edge but the unwanted stuff could be off to one side. So I have to adjust the crop region, scroll to check the edge, scroll back to adjust...

Is there a quicker way?

If the image is large this is a time consuming process because the crop region handle is only adjustable at the center of the edge

Funny, I can adjust anywhere along the edge (but I'm running CS on OSX)

If you define a crop size (even if only in one dimension) in the Options palette, then your crop handles will be restricted to the corners only, so that the crop aspect is maintained. If you want to "free crop", select Clear in the Options palette and then define your crop area. At that point, you can adjust the area by dragging an edge an any point along that edge.

Regards,

Daryl

I use a javascript on CS2 to crop images after rotating. The script will also run on CS1. It's name is autocropv2.jsx. It does quite a good job, and minimizes the amount of image loss.

I think I got it from the Adobe Exchange. I just tried to check if it's still there, but I couldn't get any results when trying to access the Photoshop Exchange. Not sure if I have a problem or it's the exchange acting up.

I could probably email you a copy if you want to give it a try. You can find my email address on my homepage. I think if you click on my name you'l find a link to my home page

Bye for now.

Zoom in > Place guides at the edges > zoom out > set snap to guide > drag crop handles