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If you want to give your scrapbook layout great impact, try cropping
your photos to really zoom in on your subject. When you crop digitally
using Photoshop Elements, it’s as easy as 1, 2, 3!
Step 1: Open your photo and select the Crop Tool by either clicking
on this tool in your tools palette, or just by hitting C on your
keyboard.
Step 2: Click your mouse on your photo and drag to mark off the
area you want to keep. A cropping border will appear around this
area and the part to be cropped away will appear darker. You can
make the cropping border bigger or smaller by dragging the corner
or side handles, or you can move it around your picture by clicking
inside the border and dragging with your mouse.
Step 3: Once you have the border where you want it, simply click
on the checkmark at the bottom right of the cropping border (PSE
4.0) or on your options toolbar (earlier versions of PSE). Or
simply hit the Enter button on your keyboard.
That’s all there is to it!
If you want to crop to a specific size, you’ll want to
pay attention to the Options Bar for the crop tool. The pull-down
menu (next to Aspect Ratio) gives you several options:
¨ No Restriction – use this option when you want to
crop your photo without any restrictions (like you would with
a paper trimmer). Selecting No Restriction will also clear out
any dimensions in the options bar that were set for previous crops.
¨ Use Photo Ratio – this is a handy way to figure out
just how big your picture is in the first place (and its resolution).
You can also use it to crop your picture so that the area cropped
will stay the same size as the original picture.
¨ Preset Crop Sizes (4x6, 5x7, etc) – this is a quick
option if you need to crop your photo to a standard size.
You can also type in your own dimensions and resolution in the
Options Bar. This is especially useful if you need your picture
to fit behind a slide mount or small frame, for example. Simply
measure the opening of the frame and put those dimensions in the
Options bar. Just make sure you set the resolution to 300 pixels/inch
for printing.
Have fun bringing impact to your layouts with cropping!
| Original
Photo |
Cropped Photos |
|
