The Adobe

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Chapter 5 Making Serious Adjustments

The Adobe Lightroom eBook for Digital Photographers

Cropping and

Straightening

You should be happy that Lightroom now has the ability to crop and straighten

photos, because when it first came out (Beta 1), it didn’t have either. We would

all just sit around and say stuff like, “I love this program, but I can’t believe you

can’t crop a photo.” I guess Adobe heard our plaintive wails because in Beta 2

they added cropping, and although it’s an entirely different way of cropping than

in Photoshop, you might find that you like it even better. Hey, I said, “you might

find,” so it gives me a pretty big out if you don’t like it.

Step One:

To crop your photo, click on the Crop

icon (circled here in red) and two things

happen: (1) a cropping border appears

around your photo, and (2) the Crop &

Straighten panel appears in the list of

panels on the right side of Lightroom.

(Well, it doesn’t “appear.” It basically

scrolls down there in a jiffy.)

Step Two:

To crop your photo, just grab one of the

corners (or the sides, or anywhere on

that border for that matter) and drag

inward. As you drag, you’ll notice that a

grid appears dividing your cropped area

into thirds, giving you a “rule of thirds”

overlay as you drag (how sweet is that?!).

If you press-and-hold the Shift key while

you drag, the cropping border will stay

proportional. If you don’t press-and-hold

the Shift key, it’s a freeform crop, and you

can move any side, top, or bottom with-

out disturbing the other sides.

©SCOTT KELBY

89Chapter 5Making Serious Adjustments

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The Adobe Lightroom eBook for Digital Photographers

Step Three:

Once you let go of the borders, you can

reposition your photo within the crop-

ping border by moving your cursor inside

the border (as shown here), and just

clicking-and-dragging the photo around

right where you want it.

Step Four:

You also have the option of using preset

crop sizes by choosing them from the

Crop & Straighten panel’s pop-up menu

(as shown here). When you choose one

of these presets, your cropping border

resizes to fit your choice, and the area

that falls inside that border will be the

size you chose (so, for example, here we

chose 4x6, so the area inside the cropping

border will be exactly 4x6"). If you choose

Enter Custom from this pop-up menu, it

brings up a dialog where you can type in

the cropping aspect ratio you’d like.

Step Five:

If at any time you want to cancel

your cropping, just press the Reset

button in the Crop & Straighten panel

(as shown here).

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Chapter 5 Making Serious Adjustments

The Adobe Lightroom eBook for Digital Photographers

Step Six:

If you need to straighten your photo,

you do that in a similar way. You can do

it while you’re cropping by just moving

your cursor outside the cropping border,

and you’ll notice it turns into a curved,

two-headed arrow. Just click, hold, and

rotate. A grid will appear over your

cropping area to help you with visually

straightening your photo. You can also

just drag the Straighten Settings Angle

slider in the Crop & Straighten panel (as

shown here). No matter which method

you choose, as you rotate the photo,

Lightroom automatically adjusts the size

of the photo, so that when you’re done

straightening there are no white gaps in

the corners (like there would be if you

did this in Photoshop. Very helpful).

Step Seven:

Once you’re done with your cropping

and straightening, you can just move

on with your work, and from now on,

only the cropped and straightened view

of your photo will appear. For example,

when you return to the Library module,

you can see that the thumbnail (top cen-

ter) now displays just your cropped and

straightened version.