Congratulations to Javier Sotomayor, November 2023 PFRE Photographer of the Month! The theme this month was "Open." Javier Sotomayor - Entry #879 Dave Koch - Entry #877 Peter Wingfield - Entry #874 Here's what Javier has to say: Hello First of all I wa ...
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Even professional real estate photographers sometimes miss the right composition when taking photos. When editing, the crop tool can help you significantly improve the visual composition and impact of your listing. So, what does the crop tool do in Photoshop?
Quick Navigation
A crop tool in Photoshop allows you to highlight a specific portion in an image and do away with everything outside the selected area. It highlights the image from the margins inwards, allowing you to remove the unwanted parts from the photo's edges and not from the center. Since it cuts off the parts of the image, you can use it to alter the aspect ratio of an image or to enhance the overall composition.
By cutting off parts of the background, the crop tool helps to magnify the primary subject in a photo and reduces the angle of view when your camera lens can't achieve the required zoom. Although It is non-destructive and doesn't affect the resolution of the cropped image, the resolution might turn lower due to the change in aspect ratio.
The tool is user-friendly and provides an interactive preview allowing you to visualize the final results. Whether you are improving the composition of your real estate interior photos or removing unwanted details on the exterior photos, you can use the following crop tooltips to crop your image in Photoshop.
Start by opening the image you want to crop by Launching Photoshop, navigating to File, and choosing Open. Once Finder opens if you are using Mac, or the File Explorer if you are using your Windows PC, navigate to your photo location and double-click the photo to open it.
When making any edits in Photoshop, it is important to create a duplicate layer and avoid working on the original image to be safe in case of a mess. With the photo opened in Photoshop, select Image from the top menu, and from the menu that appears, choose Duplicate.
Pick the crop tool from the tool panel on the left-hand side of your screen. Its icon is like two right angles intersecting each other. Alternatively, you can press the C key on your keyboard.
You cannot use a crop tool to crop individual layers as it affects the entire canvas. A canvas combines all layers, while layers are individual portions that make the overall image. All the adjustments and layers will get cropped along with the layer.
A crop tool cannot reduce the quality of your images as it only removes irrelevant details on an image. However, the increased magnification after cropping makes the photo pixelated, reducing its overall quality. This loss of quality is more noticeable if the initial photo has a low resolution.
You can crop using the selection tools in Photoshop. All you need to do is to select any selection tool from the Tool panel, such as the Rectangular Marquee tool. Click and drag to highlight the area of the photo you want to retain, and then select crop from the Image menu. A crop frame matching the selection will appear automatically, and you only need to reposition and resize it.
The Photoshop crop tool can help you remove unwanted background elements from your real estate photos, allowing you to emphasize the main subject or change the aspect ratio. However, excessive cropping can make the resulting photos look pixelated and low-quality.
