Difficulty cropping an image

[RedDwarf4Ever]

Hello
i am sure I am missing something, but when I chose crop from the left tool bar, it seems very difficult to line up and to see how much I am cropping. Dragging the mouse is too severe, but using the left and right keys, move the crop line on both sides of the image. Obviously I am doing something wrong, this should be a simple procedure. Thanks

i looked at this tutorial https://www.photoshopessentials.com/basics/how-to-crop-images-photoshop-cc/
but the crop handles look very small, compared to what I see, which partly hides the photo edges.

 

[[ iLLuSioN ]]

I use the mouse wheel to zoom (must be enabled in preferences (Strg+K) under "Tools"). Then you can place the crop frame with pixel accuracy.

Use the space key to move or simply zoom out with the mouse wheel.

If the thick crop frame bothers you, you can hide/show it with Ctrl+H.

 

[thebestcpu]

Hi @RedDwarf4Ever

I agree with @[ iLLuSioN ] that zooming in to the edge and corner you want to adjust the crop edge is quite helpful for accuracy

Yet I think there are some basics that may be getting in your way.
First the way the crop tool works has changed from older versions of Photoshop to newer versions. I am referring to the newer versions of PHotoshop
- When you turn on the crop tool, at least for me, it is not activated until I see the grid lines shown up in the crop area. A simple click in the image will make them show up if you have an issue
- The crop tool works by dragging the edges or corners of the crop frame. I noticed you mentioned using the arrow keys. When using the arrow keys, my experience is that you are moving all of the pixels which is not what you want. That is a pixel move operation instead of a crop operation
- Under the command View there is an option for Snap and Snap too. If Snap is turned on, what you do in cropping will try to Snap to the parameters in the Sanp To command. I sometimes have to turn off Snap for fine adjustments
- Dragging the Crop frame moves that edge or corner whereever you want. Yet there are modifieir keys that can adjust the action. If you hold the Shift Key while dragging it will make sure the crop maintains the orignal aspect ratio (which requires moving more edges at once. Holding the Option Key (Alt on PCs) causes the crop to to mirro the crop action on the oppostie side/corner. You can hold down both the Shift and Option key at the same time and all sides will move preseving that aspect ratio.

Just takes some practice and hope this helps
John Wheeler
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[[ iLLuSioN ]]

I sometimes have to turn off Snap for fine adjustments

Simply press Strg - this prevents from snapping

 

[thebestcpu]

Simply press Strg - this prevents from snapping

Thanks @[ iLLuSioN ]
I have not memorized all the keyboard shortcuts (I may need to go to flashcards to remember them all )
On my Mac it is Cmd + Shift + ; that toggle the status of the Snap command (Cntl + Shift + ; on PCs I assume)
However, is that what you mean by "Strg" as I may have missed something in translation?

 

[thebestcpu]

OK @[ iLLuSioN ]
I just figured out what you were indicating as I forgot on Germand Keyboards CNTL is Strg

On PCs, you can temporarily disable Snapping by holding the CNTL key down. Normally the CNTL key corresponds to the CMD key on Macs. In this particular case however, on Macs you also have to hold the CNTL key to disable Snapping. I did not know that shortcut - THANKS!
John Wheeler