How to Crop a Digital Photo Using Adobe Photoshop

Oftentimes, cropping is one of the first editing jobs that we do after importing a photo. Perhaps there was some jerk who snuck into the very edge of our picture, or maybe we were just a little loose with our composition. Adobe Photoshop’s crop tool is very smart and responsive – really a pleasure to use.

After we open our picture file, we have to decide whether or not we want to crop anything out. In the picture below, I’ve decided that there’s no reason to have two boats in this picture. I want to keep the boat of the left and get rid of the one on the right.

First, I will choose the crop tool from the Toolbox or just hit the letter “c” for the shortcut. Next, drag the crop tool to select the area of the picture that you want to keep. When you let go, you will see that everything outside of that crop border will be darkened. The dark areas will be cropped out of the picture.

You can adjust the crop by dragging at the corners to make the crop larger or smaller. Also, by placing the cursor just outside of the crop border, a curvy arrow will appear that lets you rotate the crop left and right. This is especially helpful for straightening – such as with horizons or the vertical stems of flowers.

If for some reason you want to start your crop over, just hit the “esc” button and the crop border will disappear, and you can proceed to make a new one.

When you have the crop border set the exact way that you want it, just hit enter (or return on the Mac) and Photoshop will process the crop. These keyboard shortcuts really come in handy when you're working with large numbers of pictures, so it's worthwhile to learn them.