In this post I’m going to show you how you can crop and resize images in Photoshop.
Photoshop is an amazing program that has tons of great tools and features, but it can be overwhelming for newcomers when trying to do even seemingly simple tasks. So in this article, I’ll break down several ways you can crop and resize images fast, easily, and hassle free!
On this site and on my YouTube channel I make tutorials like this one on Photoshop and Premiere Pro, as well as posts on Freelancing Tips and Tricks. So please do consider following this blog, and subscribing to my channel if you don’t want to miss any of those! Lets get right into how to crop and resize in Photoshop:
Crop Tool
And if you don’t like being locked into that measurement ratio, you can hit the clear button and it will allow you to crop to any size you like.
There’s also a dropdown menu with different preset sizes you can choose from. Where can also create your own crop preset, if you find yourself constantly having to crop images to the same size over and over.
You’ll also notice this box that says “Delete cropped pixels”, if you check that box it will do what it sounds like, and permanently delete any of the pixels you crop out. I usually leave this unchecked as it’s sort of best practices in Photoshop and most creative programs to use non destructive editing.
Image Size
If you go up to Image, and then to Image size, you’ll see a dialog box pop up with different settings. There’s a preview box here to the left of the image and you can sample outside of the box on different parts of the image if you want to take a closer look.
Dimensions
You can select how you want to view the size of your image, so you can change to percentages or inches or centimeters. I usually keep this on pixels, but there’s also a bunch of preset sizes in the drop down menu. So you can hit one of those, and it will change units in which you view the size of the image.
Proportions
This area is where you can type in how large or small you want your image to be. If you want the image to scale proportionally, make sure you have the chain icon selected next to the numbers. If you don’t do that, you’ll get some badly warped or stretched looking images, which obviously causes some problems. Which brings up the questions I wanted to ask you guys, what kind of issues are you having with resizing or cropping images? I hope to be able to cover most issues in this post, but if I don’t, let me know what issues you’re having in the comments below.
Scale Styles
There’s a little cog wheel icon in the upper right corner of the dialog box. And essentially what this does is, let’s say you had an image with a bunch of layers on it, with different text and graphics. Well with scale styles turned on, it would resize all of your layers to scale together as one, so you don’t have a text layer looking massive to all of your other layers.
Resolution
This right here, is very important because this directly affects the quality of the image when you resize it. If you have too low of a resolution and you try to scale the image up, it’s going to look really pixelated and just bad. A pro tip, if you’re looking to print out an image, the best resolution for printing is 300 dpi.
Resampling
This is basically how Photoshop determines how to resize your image, so that you don’t get weird lines or noise happening. I usually just go with automatic, but you can get in there and start playing around with the advanced settings if you like.
Marquee Tool
You can also use the Marquee Tool to crop images. If there’s a specific part of an image you just want to isolate in on, you can select that part, go up to image, scroll down to crop, and then there you go. I’m not sure if very many people use this feature, but that’s one of the cool things about Photoshop, there’s so many different ways to do one thing.
Transform Tool, Rasterize Images, & Smart Objects
You can also resize images by hitting command T, and holding down the Alt key, grab a corner and you can increase or decrease the size of the image.
One thing to look out for is, If I were to copy and paste this image into a new document, it will create a small problem for me when I go to resize the image. Because I copied and pasted this photo, it’s now rasterized, Which in this case means the image will lose its original resolution, and look really crappy if I try to scale back up.
If I were to drag and drop this image from finder into Photoshop, it will first come up with the transform options already selected. So I can scale this up or down however I want, and when I hit enter, it will set it as those dimensions. If i were to rescale it back up, it won’t lose any quality and that’s because this image is a smart object. As a smart object Photoshop retains all the information about the resolution so you don’t lose any quality.
You can also go to file, place embedded, to find the image you want to resize and that will bring it in as a Smart object as well.
So those are some ways to crop and resize in Photoshop, again, just leave me a comment with any issues you guys might be having with cropping and resizing images.
Now, you know several ways to crop and resize any image you’d like in Photoshop! If you have any questions or issues with cropping or resizing, just let me know in the comments below!
Scott Edward Fowler 