SLP CURRICULUM GUIDE #15
Curriculum Guide Index

SLP Curriculum Guide #15: Selection Tool, Crop & Move

The Selections Tools are used to select an area or areas of an image or photographs. The tools include Selection, Freehand, Magic Wand and Crop. I also include the Dropper and Move Tools with this set of tools. Each of these tools have their own set of options though in some cases the options may be similar between tools. Thus, exploring each tool and its options allows one to master that tool.

GUIDE #15: CROP and MOVE

The 'Crop' and 'Move' tools are very easy and simple tools to use. The 'Crop' tool simply reduces the size of a canvas by selecting the area to keep. The 'Move' tool will move selections on a layer to a desired location. The 'Move' tool often will work with other tools without it having to be selected from the Tools bar.

CROP TOOL 1024 x 768     600 x 400

  1. After clicking on the Crop Tool, the main picture appears darker and the cropping area is in the upper left corner.
  2. By Grabbing a corner handle one can drag the crop area to the size one wants. And, using the corner and/or middle handles one can size the area as desired. Note that the crop area goes back to the original colors of the picture.
  3. Grabbing the middle handle allows one to move the area to the place in the main picture to crop then to a particular size.
  4. One can use the Presets to crop to a specific sized area and then moving it to where one wants.
  5. On can also use the other Tool Options to more accurately size the crop area.
  6. If one has used a Selection, then in the Tool Options palette one can click on the 'Snap Crop Rectangle To:' that selection.
  7. Once having the area wanted then in the Tool Options Palette click on the Crop Check Mark to crop the picture. One can also use the Curved Arrow to Reset the Crop box.
  8. To Undo and return to the original, use the Undo feature (Ctrl+Z).
  9. Cropping to an area preserves the quality of the Area. Thus, rather than resizing the image, Cropping can be a method to reduce the size of a photograph without affecting its quality.

MOVE TOOL

  1. Simply grab the area to move with the tool, hold down the mouse button and move it.
  2. If moving the whole area, the canvas must not be 'Background' but a 'Raster Layer'.
  3. Just experiment to see how things work.
EXAMPLE: In this example, I removed the background from the original photograph and resized it to a much smaller picture,added a white background and a black border. Then I added it to the cropped photograph illustrated above and used the 'Move Tool' to position it in the top left corner.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

  1. When completing a tutorial or series of tutorials, and having placed them upon your web page, post in the SLP Forum your completed work using this layout:
    • a. Name or Screen Name.
    • b. Web Site URL.
    • c. Version of PSP using.
    • d. List of Tutorials completed.
  2. From exploration of using the Crop and Move Tools on images and/or photographs post some of your results and or comments in response to the exercises.
    • a. Indicate what you did so others can duplicate.
    • b. Indicate what option values.
    • c. Add comments on your results and findings of interest.
    • d. Share your questions and comments in the SLP Forum and your graphic results in the member Gallery SLP Album as well as in the Forum.

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