Cropping & Rotating Images

Topics covered in this Lightroom tutorial:

Cropping images, Rotating images, Straightening images, The History panel

Exercise Preview

Exercise Overview

In this exercise, you will learn how to crop, rotate and straighten images in Lightroom’s Develop module. First, you’ll import new photos to work with.

Importing More Photos

1. Make sure you’re in the Library module.

2. At the bottom of the left panel, click Import.

3. Under Source, navigate to Desktop > Class Files > Lightroom Class and select the Develop folder.

4. At the top, above the photos, make sure Add is selected (highlighted).

5. We’ll use the same settings we used for the previous import, so you’re all set! On the bottom right, click the Import button.

Cropping Images

1. After the import finishes, click the church façade photo (20111008_swny_030).

2. At the top middle of the screen, click on Develop to go into the Develop module, a workspace for photo editing. We’ll explore its many tools and features.

3. In the side panel on the right, under the Histogram, click the Crop Overlay tool .

   The image should now have a grid overlay. (If you don’t see it, go into the Toolbar below the photo and change Tool Overlay to Always.)

4. Let’s see what kinds of grids this tool can display by going to Tools > Crop Guide Overlay. Click on an option such as Diagonal or Golden Spiral to quickly see what it looks like. Make sure you end up with the Aspect Ratios option selected.

5. By default, the 8.5 x 11, 4 x 5, 5 x 7, and 2 x 3 aspect ratios are shown, helping us imagine what the image would look like printed on various sizes of paper. If you don’t see these multiple aspect ratios, do the following sidebar.

   If You Don’t See the Correct Aspect Ratios

   1. Go to Tools > Crop Guide Overlay > Choose Aspect Ratios.
   2. In the dialog that appears, check on 8.5 x 11, 4 x 5, 5 x 7, and 2 x 3.
   3. Click OK and notice the multiple overlaid grids!

6. The panel directly under the Crop Overlay tool is called the Options panel. It shows different options based on the tool. Select the following Crop Options:

   • From the dropdown next to Aspect that may say As Shot, select Original.
   • Next to that menu, make sure that the lock is in the locked position to constrain the aspect ratio. (Clicking it locks/unlocks the aspect ratio.)

7. Click and drag the top-right corner down and to the left until around 75% of the photo remains in the bounding box. Release the mouse button when the photo looks like this:

   

8. Drag the photo so that it is in the center of the bounding box:

   

9. Click the Crop Overlay tool to crop the photo. Looks good, but let’s fiddle with the aspect ratio to make it look even better.

10. Click the Crop Overlay tool again.

11. Click the lock to unlock the aspect ratio.

12. We want to slightly reduce the photo’s width. To get the final result shown below:

    • Opt–drag (Mac) or Alt–drag (Windows) the bounding box’s left or right handle inward to change both sides at once.
    • If you want to change one side at a time, drag the appropriate handle.
    • While doing this, notice the way the four aspect ratios change.

    

13. Click the Crop Overlay tool to crop the photo again. Nice work!

Rotating a Photo

1. At the top of the screen, click on Library to return to the Library module.

2. In the Catalog panel, select All Photographs.

3. Click on the sky photo (20110820_YourName_014). If you stacked the sky photos earlier, Ctrl–click (Mac) or Right–click (Windows) on the stack and select Stacking > Expand Stack. Now you can select the sky photo.

4. Press D to go into the Develop module.

5. After the photo finishes loading, select the Crop Overlay tool .

6. Make sure Original is selected from the Aspect menu and it is locked .

7. Crop the sand out of the photo:

   

8. Hover a little past the edges of the bounding box until a small rotate icon appears as the cursor.

9. Drag clockwise or counterclockwise to rotate the photo.

   NOTE: You can also manually edit this. To do so, in the Crop Overlay tool’s option panel, to the right of the Angle tool , adjust the slider.

Undoing Transformations

1. In the History panel on the left, click on Import (m/d/yy h:m:ss) to revert the photo to its original version.

2. Click the Crop Overlay tool to expand the Crop Options panel if it is not already open.

3. Let’s make the horizon perfectly straight. Click the Angle tool to pick it up.

4. Drag from left to right across the horizon line. (In the image below we also cropped the photo so you can better see where to drag—you do NOT need to crop it.)

   

5. Click the Crop Overlay tool to apply the rotation.

   We just made the horizon completely horizontal! Awesome.

6. Press G to return to the Library module.