Opening, Cropping & Saving Digital Images

 Written by Design Team Member - Shirley Fyfe

When you open Photoshop you will be confronted with this screen. Trying to understand all the tools are available to you in this program can seem very daunting & overwhelming – so . . . let’s break it all down into small steps so that we are just working on one aspect at a time.

You will see that I have labelled the key tool from the ‘Toolbox’ that we will use in this lesson – this is the cropping tool.

When you open photos taken with a digital camera or indeed if you scan them into your system, you will need to crop them to size to avoid having your image cropped incorrectly at the printing stage.

So . . . let us begin!

Once you have launched the Photoshop program you can open any image using the File menu along the top of the screen.

Choose File > Open

This will then take you to the Open Dialogue box from where you can choose your image from all the various folders & files that you may have on your system.

Once you have found the image you want, click ‘Open’ (or just double click on it) Viola! Your image is ready to be edited!

If you have a scanner connected to your computer, you can scan an image directly into Photoshop by using the ‘File > Import’ function and selecting the scanner from the sub-menu. For the purposes of this lesson though, I’ll just stick to opening a direct file as shown above.

Now that we have our image open, I’m going to show you how to crop this image so that you will be able to print it at standard 6 x 4 photo size. You will need to select the ‘Crop’ tool (as highlighted in the first image) by clicking on it OR for a shortcut version, just push the letter ‘C’ on your computer.

By pre-determining what size you want your cropped image to be you will always end up with the perfectly sized photo ready for printing. You will see that in the ‘Crop Tool Options Bar’ along the top, I have inserted in the width ‘6 in’ (for 6 inches) and the height ‘4 in’ (for 4 inches) – this pre-determines the cropping size. I have made sure that the ‘Resolution’ is on 300 and that it is set to ‘pixels/inch’ from the drop down menu.

You should now notice that your mouse cursor has changed to the ‘Crop’ tool symbol. By placing it in the top left side of your image and dragging it downwards to the right, you will define the cropped area and create what is called a ‘crop marquee’. Once you let go of the mouse button, the area of the selection which is outside the cropping size will be dim in colour and it is this area that will be discarded once we complete the crop. You can re-size the crop area, move it up, down or to the side by clicking your mouse & dragging. Once you are happy with the positioning of the crop, press ‘Enter’ to complete the cropping – otherwise press the ‘Esc’ key to return to your original image and start over. Like anything, you get better with practice!

Viola! One 6 x 4 photo cropped perfectly to size!

As an example . . . here is my original image, one cropped as a 6 x 4 size & also one as a 5 x 7 in size. As you can see, there is a slight variation in the image based on the size I have cropped it to.

Now that we have our perfectly cropped image, it’s time to save it onto our system. I NEVER save over the top of an original image . . . I always keep my original images as they have been taken by my camera OR as I have scanned them.

Start by clicking on ‘File > Save As’ to bring up the ‘Save As’ dialogue box.

What I do (and this is so that all my edited images are all grouped together along with my original images should I ever want to re-print any of them) is to keep the original file name and add to the end of it it’s cropped size.

With the above 3 examples, I have them saved as DSC08054.jpg (this is the original image); DSC080546x4.jpg (this is my 6 x 4 cropped image) AND DSC080545x7.jpg (this is my 5 x 7 cropped image) – as you can see I have added the size to the last 3 figures of the file name. Obviously, there are many ways you can decide to save your files and it really is a personal choice – this is just what I find works for me and allows me to easily find a cropped image should I ever want another copy without my having to repeat the whole process again.

Once you are happy with your file name and the location of the file, click ‘Save’ and you are all done!

Your image has now been opened, cropped, saved onto your computer and is now ready for printing!  Congratulations!