The Magnetic Lasso tool in Photoshop is one of those tools regularly overlooked in the process of making a selection. However, that is a mistake because you can use it to do wonderful things once you understand how it works.
How to Crop Images in Photoshop CC How to reset the Crop Tool. Right-clicking (Win) / Control-clicking (Mac) on the tool icon. Choosing a preset aspect ratio. Clicking the Aspect Ratio option in the Options Bar. Swapping the orientation. Swapping the Width and Height values. Choosing a custom.
In very simple terms, this tool makes selections based on edges. This means you can get a pretty accurate – 80 to 90% accuracy – selection. This means the tool selects the edges of the object as you move the mouse by finding the changes in brightness and color values between the object and its background. As it finds those edges it lays down an outline to the edge and, like a magnet, snaps to it. Thus the tool’s name.
So how does it do it? Adobe would tell you it is good old “Adobe Magic”. That isn’t the case. There is a limit to the area where the tool finds the edges. What is that limit? No one is quite sure and Adobe isn’t telling. You have to use the tool’s “hot spot” which is the little piece of rope dangling from the bottom of the cursor’s icon. We are not huge fans of this, so we usually press the Caps Lock to change to a precision cursor which is a circle with a +-sign in the middle. That circle tells us anything in that circle is looked at and everything outside of it is ignored.
Where does one regularly use the Magnetic Lasso tool? If the selection you want to make has edges that strongly contrast with the pixels around it, do your sanity and productivity a favor and pick the Magnetic Lasso.
There are a couple of ways of getting at the tool. The first is to select it from the Lasso Tool fly out. It is at the bottom. Alternatively, you can use the keyboard command – Shift-L – to cycle through the three tools.
Once you have selected the Magnetic Lasso, to Tool Options will change. They are:
Once you have determined your options find an edge to drag along and make your selection.
No selection is ever “dead on”. With the Magnetic Lasso, there are a few ways of correcting errors. They include:
Cropping is the process of removing portions of a photo to create focus or strengthen the composition. Use the Crop tool to crop and straighten photos in Photoshop. The Crop tool is non-destructive, and you can choose to retain the cropped pixels to optimize the crop boundaries later. The Crop tool also provides intuitive methods to straighten a photo while cropping.
For all operations, visual guides provide an interactive preview. When you crop or straighten photos, real-time feedback helps you visualize the final result.
From the toolbar, select the Crop Tool . Crop borders display on the edges of the photo.
Draw a new cropping area or drag the corner and edge handles to specify the crop boundaries in your photo.
(Optional) Specify the Crop options using the Control bar.
Choose a ratio or size for the crop box. You can also choose a preset, enter your own, or even define your own preset values for later use.
Choose a view to display overlay guides while cropping. Guides such as Rule of Thirds, Grid, and Golden Ratio are available. To cycle through all the options, press O.
Click the Settings (gear) menu to specify additional crop options.
Enable this option if you want to use the Crop tool like it was in previous versions of Photoshop (CS5 and earlier).
Enable this option to place the preview in the center of the canvas.
Enable this option to display the area that is cropped. If this option is disabled, only the final area is previewed.
Use the crop shield to overlay the cropped areas with a tint. You can specify a color and opacity. If you Enable Auto Adjust Opacity, the opacity is reduced when you edit the crop boundaries.
Disable this option to apply a non-destructive crop and retain pixels outside the crop boundaries. Non-destructive cropping does not remove any pixels. You can later click the image to see areas outside current crop borders.
Enable this option to delete any pixels that are outside the crop area. These pixels are lost and are not available for future adjustments.
Note:
Right-click the Crop box to access common crop options from the context menu.
Press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac OS) to crop the photo.
For more information on cropping, see the video Crop a photo.
The following updates were introduced in the Creative Cloud release for Photoshop CS6:
Photoshop CC now uses content-aware technology to intelligently fill in the gaps when you use the Crop tool for straightening or rotating an image, or expanding your canvas beyond the image's original size.
Follow these steps:
Note:
Content-Aware Fill On Crop is not supported in the Classic mode of the Crop tool. To disable the Classic mode, do the following:
Note:
If you're using a recent release of Photoshop CC, you may prefer using Content-Aware Fill on Crop while straightening images.
You can straighten a photo while cropping. The photo is rotated and aligned to straighten it. The canvas is automatically resized to accommodate the rotated pixels.
See Straightening a crooked image to watch a video explaining straightening an image using the Crop tool.
The Perspective Crop tool lets you transform the perspective in an image while cropping. Use the Perspective Crop tool when working with images that contain keystone distortion. Keystone distortion occurs when an object is photographed from an angle rather than from a straight‑on view. For example, if you take a picture of a tall building from ground level, the edges of the building appear closer to each other at the top than they do at the bottom.
To correct image perspective, hold down the Crop tool and select the Perspective Crop tool .
Draw a marquee around the distorted object. Match the edges of the marquee to the rectangular edges of the object.
Press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac OS) to complete the perspective crop.
See the video Adjust perspective in a photo for more information.
You can use the Crop tool to resize the image canvas.
From the toolbar, select the Crop Tool . Crop borders display on the edges of the image.
Drag the crop handles outwards to enlarge the canvas. Use the Alt/Option modifier key to enlarge from all sides.
Press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac OS) to confirm the action.
To resize the canvas, you can also choose Image > Canvas Size. See Change the Canvas size or the tutorial video Understanding canvas size for more information.
Twitter™ and Facebook posts are not covered under the terms of Creative Commons.
Legal Notices | Online Privacy Policy