Overview
There are quite a few different tools that allow for removal of specific areas within an image but one of the most commonly used tools is the crop tool. The crop tool is a very versatile tool utilized in almost every edited image, especially when professionals want to crop a photo. This tutorial will discuss, in detail, the various types of crop tools, their use in cropping photos and provide a basic understanding of the photo slice tools in Photopea.
What is a Photo Crop Tool?
Images seen on the Internet are not always captured by the photographer or created by the digital artist the way they are viewed on those webpages. Digital images go through an editing process and the photo crop tool is one of the tools utilized in this editing process. The crop tool, also known as the photo crop tool, allows for easy removal of unwanted outer edges and distracting areas from a digital photo.
How to use the Crop Tool in Photopea
- Select the crop tool in Photopea.
- Move your cursor where you would like to begin your effect.
- Click and hold your left mouse button down
- Drag your cursor around the area for which you want to capture. Everything outside the selected area will be removed or cropped out.
Different Uses for the Crop Tool
The crop tool is used for so many various editing options, to list and explain them all here would make this tutorial beyond the intended length. Instead, let us list the top ten uses and their explanations of the crop tool.
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Cropping to remove unwanted borders
Original images tend to come with unwanted aspects of the image such as various borders or unwanted edges. These types of image enhancements may not be desired so we remove these unwanted borders. This action is called cropping the image, photo crop or crop photo. We use the crop tool to easily remove any type of image borders or unwanted edges from the image.
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Cropping to create a focal point
Professional image editing is all about where to bring the viewer's eye. It is one edit after another to bring the viewer's eye to exactly where the image editor wants the focal point. One of the biggest uses for the crop tool is to create that focal point on the image. By using the crop tool, we can cut away other aspects of the image and bring the viewer's eye to our desired area instead of letting their eye wander wherever.
For example, where do we want the viewer's focus? In each of these images review where the focal point is within the image. The only change was cropping the original image.
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Crop to change portrait images to landscape, or the reverse
When converting images from portrait to landscape or landscape to portrait, we want to start out with high resolution images. The crop tool makes it extremely easy to draw our desired area and then resize down to our desired resolution. The conversion using the crop tool is not without its nuances but those deal with more of the desired resolution outcome than the cropping itself. As professionals, we want to know our desired finished resolution, our focal point and wanted effects prior to using the crop to for the conversion of images from landscape to portrait or portrait to landscape.
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Staging a rule of thirds image
The photo crop tool allows for easily changing the image by creating the very commonly known rule of thirds, amongst other photography rules. While this description really deserves two answers with one describing the rule of thirds and the other explaining how to crop for it, the rule of thirds explanation goes beyond the scope of this tutorial. We offer a completely separate tutorial that is dedicated towards the rule of thirds.
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Close-up imaging
Ever wonder about those awesome close-up images that photographers create. Guess which tool is used to crop the photo in the editing of that photo to provide that effect? The crop photo tool makes this effect extremely easy to accomplish.
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Reduce or remove unwanted areas
The image editing process removes unwanted sections within the photo. By removing the undesired or unwanted areas within an image, we change the focal point of that image. Take for example, an image with people across a mountain range. While the mountains in the background may be really pretty, that may not be where we want the viewer's attention. We may want the viewer's attention on the people. By cropping out the unwanted areas within the image, we change the perspective of the image and therefore move the viewer's eye where we want it.
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Easily remove distractions
Similar to removing unwanted areas, we use the photo crop tool to remove specific objects that are distracting within the photo. Perhaps we want the focus to be the mountains and not the people in the image. By using the photo crop tool to remove the distracting areas within the image, we control the viewer's focus within the image.
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Enhance composition or the image frame
When we crop areas out within a digital photo, we change the placement of the various elements within the photo, known as the composition. By adjusting the composition of the photo using the crop tool, we can enhance that photo to be more interesting to the viewer. We can create a different cutout frame around the photo to create a different look altogether. While this sounds easy enough, this is considered an advanced technique with the crop tool because it requires training your eye and receiving lots of feedback from others to know what other people will find interesting when attempting to enhance the composition of the photo.
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Adjusting the image size or aspect ratio
There are many aspects of a fantastic image for editing but one of the things we figure out as we go is image size or aspect ratio, more commonly known as image resolution. The image resolution plays a huge part in how well we can edit that image. If an image comes to us with a very low resolution or small file size, it is more difficult to use the crop tool to cut out undesired areas because there is no resolution left for which to work within the image. When an image comes to use with a large resolution, we can now crop out areas within the photo, remove unwanted items, change the aspect ratio and then resize the image down to the desired size.
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Straighten an image
The photo crop tool can be used to adjust the angle of the image. Many times, images will come to us crooked and that is not our desired outcome. Using the photo crop tool to adjust the angle of that digital photo can produce a more desired and more appealing look to our viewer.
Perspective Crop
This tool allows for adjusting the perspective of the image. This is an advanced tool that takes practice to really understand how to use it. This tool is excellent for providing a 3D effect or a close-up effect on the photo. It can ruin the perspective of an image if used incorrectly.
Slice Tool
The slice tool is a photo crop tool but without removing the cropped areas. Instead of removing and discarding the cropped areas, the slice tool creates separate images out of each slice.
Slice Select Tool
Use the Slice Select tool in Photopea to select a specific slice by left clicking on it. Holding down the shift key allows us to select multiple slices.
After we have selected the slices for which we want to use, we can move the selected slices around to different spots within the image or delete the slices using the delete key on our keyboard.
Use the squares, called handles, in the corner to resize the slices.
