The winter months for a natural light photographer are slow. It makes for a great time to send equipment into the shop for cleaning, organizing files, reviewing forms and refining workflow just in time for spring. Inspired by my Mother-in-law, I thought it would be helpful for some to do some basic Photoshop tutorials. Over Christmas I realized she had Photoshop CS3 installed on her iMac and had no idea how to use it. What better inspiration to cover some of the most basic tasks in Photoshop.
Cropping and saving files for web use, using Photoshop CS4.
Before I get into the “how-to” of cropping, I want to first explain aspect ratio. Aspect ratio has nothing to do with image size but rather to image shape. Simply put, it’s the ratio of it’s length to it’s width. For example, My Nikon D700 takes photos in the 3:2 aspect ratio. A Nikon D3S takes images in either the 3:2, 5:4 & 1:2 ratios. As you can see, different cameras capture images at different ratios. If you are interested in finding out which aspect ratio your camera has, click here. For comparison, a 4×6 photo is in the 3:2 aspect ratio. An 8×10 is a 5:4 aspect ratio photo. In order to get an 8×10 photo from a camera that captures images in a 3:2 aspect ratio you need to crop.
Photoshop has two great tools for cropping. One is the “Crop Tool” and the other is the “Rectangular Marquee Tool.”
First lets talk about the “Crop Tool.”
1. Open a photo.
2. Press C to select the Crop Tool
3. Enter the dimensions on the Option Bar. The button in the center with the two arrows is to swap your dimensions. An easy way to swap between portrait and landscape orientations.
4. Click, drag & release what you want cropped. The areas which are shaded are the areas that will be subtracted from your photo. If you need to make adjustments to your crop, simply click and drag the box to where you want it, or use one of the four bounding boxes to make your crop larger or smaller. Irregardless of how you adjust the crop, the final image will be the dimensions you entered. When finished press Enter.
There are two other options you may have noticed. The “Front Image” and “Clear” buttons. When clicked the Front Image button will automatically put in the dimensions of the photo you have open. The Clear button will clear any Crop Tool parameters. When cleared, you are in full control of the Crop Tool.
Cropping using the “Rectangular Marquee Tool”. With this tool you have the ability to maintain a certain aspect ratio or a fixed size. I use this tool a lot when I make storyboards which require clipping masks.
1. Open a photo
2. Press M or select the Rectangular Marquee Tool
3. Make sure that ‘New Selection’ is selected on your options bar
4. Ensure ‘Feather’ is set to O
5. Style drop down box. Here you can choose between Normal – where you are in full control; Fixed Ratio – you select the aspect ratio. Fixed Size – you specify what size in inches or pixels (in=inches, px=pixels).
6. Enter in your parameters and click, drag and release what you want cropped. If needed, you can make adjustments to your crop just as we did with the Crop Tool.
7. When finished, go to Image>Crop.
I’d personally recommend using the Crop Tool for all of your cropping needs unless you have a specific need to maintain a certain aspect ratio or if making a template where the ‘Fixed Size’ will come in handy. Keep in mind, the rule of thirds and the “golden ratio” (3:2 ratio) when cropping your images.
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Now that your image is cropped, you may want to shrink its size to make it easier to e-mail. Many, if not most digital cameras capture images at a resolution of 240. If you are just sharing your photos with friends and family or posting them to facebook, there isn’t a need to maintain that high of a resolution. With just a few clicks, you can shrink your file from 10mb to 150k. Here’s how to do it.
1. Open your photo.
2. File>Save for Web & Devices
3. Working from top to bottom. Set the first drop down box to ‘JPEG’ as this will be the format of your file. Make sure that ‘Optimized’ is checked. Set the quality to 75. Check the box ‘Convert to sRGB’ and at the very bottom, choose a percentage where the final dimensions (to the left) are somewhere around 600×800. When finished, click ‘Save’. Feel free to adjust the quality as you see fit, you can likely get away with setting it to 60 without any significant visual changes to your image.
This file below was originally a 34.9mb JPG. After optimizing for web, this file is only 229k.
Next tutorial I will be taking you from start to finish on a full beauty retouch. Thanks for stopping by!
by geoff
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