Lightroom’s Crop Tool is actually called the Crop Frame Tool and primarily used to crop out unwanted portions of an image or straighten a crooked horizon. But did you know Lightroom’s Crop Tool can also change the image aspect ratio and/or provide composition guides?
Keep reading as I show you all the uses of Lightroom’s Crop Tool, when to use it, and how it differs from Lightroom’s Lens Correction and Transform crop adjustments. For those familiar with Crop Tool, you may want to skip to how I integrate the Transform, Lens Correction and Crop tools into my Develop workflow.
For purposes of this article I am using Lightroom Classic but similar adjustments can be found in Lightroom CC.
Lightrooms Crop Panel
To crop an image in Lightroom, open the Develop Tab and click on the crop icon that resembles two intersecting L’s with arrows as seen below or hit the “R” on the keyboard. Once the crop icon is clicked the following panel will open:
The Crop Panel provides a number of different ways to crop, resize and/or straighten an image. However, if you have never used the Crop Tool, these options may appear a bit confusing. So let’s walk through each icon in the Crop Panel.
Before we begin I should point out that Lightroom’s Crop Tool is non destructive. Your original photo is untouched. The Crop Tool is a set of instructions for what parts of the image will be exported for an intended use. Unlike Photoshop, you can always go back and redo a crop if you change your mind. Therefore, I highly recommend always cropping images in Lightroom and not in Photoshop.
Understanding Lightrooms Crop Options
Selecting a Crop Tool
The very first tool you see in the Crop Panel is a funny looking right angle with another right angle in the background next to the word Angle. That is called the Crop Frame Tool and it is used to draw a crop in an image based on specific dimensions. The Lightroom default is a landscape rectangle crop with the aspect ratios of your original imported image. In my case it is a 3×2 ratio.
The red arrow points to the crop tool that is currently in Landscape mode.
Changing the Crop from Landscape to Portrait
To toggle between a landscape and vertical crop, click on the Crop Frame Tool and hit the “X” key or if the crop is already on an image, just hit the “X” key.
The Crop Aspect
Next to the Crop Frame Tool is the word Aspect. Once the crop has been completed, clicking on Aspect will open up the following dimension choices:
When the Aspect drop down menu is opened, the following ratios on the left will appear. Let’s say you want to use this ocean image to create 5×7 greeting cards. Click the 5×7 and the crop will change to the new ratio.
The Aspect Ratio is not the image size.
By the way, an image crop can also be performed directly from the Aspect tool.
Crop Overlays
In addition to cropping images, Lightroom has a hidden feature called Overlays. Why this is hidden I don’t know.
Lightroom Crop Overlays are compositional guides that will take the guess work out of cropping an image. To access Overlays, initiate any image crop then hit the “O” key. Once the “O” key is selected, hit enter to display an Overlay. Continue hitting “O” to cycle through all the different Overlay options shown below.
Grid
Rule of Thirds
Diagonal
Center
Triangle
Golden Ratio
Golden Spiral
Tip: When cycling through the Overlays, hit the “L” button to dim your screen. It will help you evaluate the cropping choices and remember you always want a composition that keeps the viewers eye moving through the image and not to the edges of an image.
But that’s not all. Lightroom also has the following overlay that shows the different aspect ratios that will help you crop an image for a given output. These are great for determining if an image can work as a certain size print or just to improve the composition of any image. Not all images look great in a 2×3 aspect ratio.
Aspect Ratio
The following image is a great example of an image that works better as a 4×3 than a 3×2 ratio. Also note at the bottom of the image a bar that says Tool Overlay: Always. Any time you wish to remove the Overlays from the image, click next to Tool Overlay and chose between Always, Auto, and Never.
Level the Image
In this post I am describing functions in the order in which they are shown on the Crop Panel and not in the order in which I perform them to make it easier for you to follow along. However, I should note that the very first thing I do as part of my crop process is to level the image. Hint- I may or may not level it in Crop.
So let’s look at how to level an image then I will explain why leveling is the first step in any image crop.
Let’s assume that the image does not require any crop, or need a Transform adjustment, just leveling. In that case I would begin with one of the three options outlined in the red area shown below.
As you can see, the choices for leveling include Auto, The Ruler, or Angle (the slider).
Lastly an image can be leveled directly from the crop tool by moving the cursor on the white line of a crop box and once arrows appear, grab a corner and rotate the image until level.
Why Do I Level an Image Before Cropping?
Using the Leveling tools discussed above will result in the need to crop portions of an image such as in the image below that was Auto leveled.
I see no need to crop, then level to only have to crop again so I level first then crop.
Constrain to Image
At the bottom left side of the Crop panel is a box titled “Constrain to Image”. Checking this box will ensure all cropping occurs inside the image. Leaving this box unchecked will allow adjustments to occur both inside and outside the image. If an adjustment occurs outside the image, blank space is added to the actual image. (Ignore my above example where the box was unchecked, it should have been closed for illustration)
The Crop, Lens Correction, & Transform Panel Workflow
Lightroom has a number of tools that although have different purposes do similar functions. For example, Lens Correction, Transform and Crop can each produce some form of an image crop. While Lens Correction will result in no to extremely minor crops, Transform adjustments can produce very significant crops to an image.
Next, Transform and Crop panels each have capabilities to level and straighten an image so deciding when and where to perform these functions can be confusing.
What I look for when processing an image is a workflow that does not undo previous adjustments. To that end, I perform Lens Correction, Transform, and Crop using the following workflow. If you are not familiar with the Lens Correction and Transform Panels please take a minute to read those posts before proceeding to the Workflow.
Workflow
The very first steps I perform before making any other adjustments in Lightroom are Lens, Correction, Transform (if needed), the Crop. In fact I have redone my Lightroom Panel to reflect this processing order.
1. All images are first processed with a Lens Correction adjustment including Chromatic Aberration.
2. Images that have no perspective distortions such as keystoning, can skip Transform and be moved to the Crop Panel where I level then crop my images.
3. Images that require a Transform Panel Adjustment are adjusted for distortions which includes leveling the image. Since Transform adjustments result in image crops, I now evaluate if any additional cropping or aspect changes need to be performed. If not, I skip Crop and begin all other Develop Adjustments.
3b. Images that need additional cropping, regardless if it is composition adjustments or aspect ratio adjustments will now be processed in the Crop Panel adjustment. Note since these images were leveled in the Transform Panel, leveling in the Crop Panel is skipped.
4. Crop- I reserve the Crop Panel for last and use it to clean up any additional items that should be removed from my image, use Overlays for composition crops and Aspect overlays for producing specific image outputs such as 5 x 7 aspects for note cards. Again, I only level using Crop if the image was not adjusted in the Transform Panel.
Crop Panel- Questions and Other Things to Know
Does Lightroom have keyboard shortcuts for Cropping? Yes, R for Crop Tool, O for Overlay, X for changing between landscape and portrait, and A for unlocking aspect ratios.
How do I undo a Crop? To undo a crop, hit the reset button at the bottom of the crop panel. If you have leveled an image and only want to remove the crop while saving the level, open the history panel and go back to the level stage.
How do I turn off the Overlay. Find the Tool Overlay box shown directly under and left of an image and cycle through it’s options of Always, Never, and Auto.
What is the best way to Crop? There is no right answer, it depends on what you are trying to accomplish. For certain images that don’t require leveling, or aspect ratio changes, grabbing the crop tool and clicking in the image to crop is all that is needed. For other images, cropping can involve first using Transform to correct perspectives, then leveling, and lastly changing the aspect ratio. The best advice I can offer is to become familiar with each tool so you will know the best way to approach each image.
Final Thoughts on Cropping
Cropping an image is a critical part of any image processing workflow. Cropping allows you to remove unwanted edge objects from an image, improve compositions and best position images on different output dimensions.
Also using Lightroom’s Crop Overlay compositional guides is a wonderful way to improve compositional skills that can carry forward into the field on your next shots.
I hope this overview of the Crop tool as well as my recommended workflow is helpful. By the way, if any of you have other workflows that involving cropping, I welcome hearing from you.
As always, thanks for joining me on a Learn Photography discussion and I hope to see you back soon.