Oreilly Photoshop CS5 The Missing Manual_2

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Nội dung Text: Oreilly Photoshop CS5 The Missing Manual_2

Basic Channel Stunts Note: What’s the difference between “noise” and “grain”? They both describe tiny flecks on your image, but, technically speaking, noise occurs in digital images, whereas grain occurs in analog prints, film, and transparencies. In other words, grain becomes noise once you scan the image. However, let’s say you’re in RGB mode and you dutifully followed the instructions on page 462 and ran the Reduce Noise filter on your blue channel (which typically has the most noise, though sometimes noise can hide out in the red channel) and it didn’t do squat. What do you do? You can try bringing out some of the details in your image by sharpening only the red and green channels, as shown in Figure 5-15. Figure 5-14: Photoshop doesn’t let you merge two channels into one, but you can combine them into a new channel with the Calculations command: Choose Image➝Calculations and, in the dialog box shown here, set the Source 1 section’s Channel pop-up menu to “Red copy” and the Source 2 section’s menu to “Green copy”. Choose Multiply from the Blending pop-up menu at the bottom of the dialog box if you want to create a black object or Screen if you want to create a white one. When everything’s set, click OK. chapter 5: controlling color with channels 215
Basic Channel Stunts Tip: The next time you need to sharpen a portrait of someone who’s sensitive about his or her appear- ance, try sharpening only the red channel to avoid bringing out unwanted details in the person’s skin. (As you learned earlier in this chapter, most of the fine details live in the high-contrast green channel.) Here’s how to sharpen without making noise any worse than it already is: 1. Open your image and make a copy of the layer(s) you’re going to sharpen. If you’re working with a document that has just one layer, select it in your Layers panel and duplicate it by pressing �-J (Ctrl+J on a PC). If you like, double-click the layer’s name and rename it Sharpen. If you’re working on a multilayer document, press and hold the Option key (Alt on a PC) while choosing Merge Visible from the Layers panel’s menu (see the figure on page 78). Photoshop combines all the layers into a new layer. Drag this new layer to the top of your Layers panel and name it Sharpen. Figure 5-15: If you select the red and green channels before running a sharpening filter, you restrict the sharpening to those channels. That helps you avoid sharpening, and therefore accentuating, any noise. 2. Open the Channels panel (page 189) and select the red and green channels. Click to select one channel and then Shift-click to select the other one, so they’re both highlighted in your Channels panel. Don’t panic if your image turns a weird color (like the horse in Figure 5-15); Photoshop is just showing you the image using only those two color channels. Photoshop CS5: The Missing Manual 216
Basic Channel Stunts 3. Choose Filter➝Sharpen➝Unsharp Mask (page 463). When you run a filter while you’ve got only certain channels selected, Photo- shop applies the sharpening to just those channels. In this case, it won’t apply any sharpening to the blue channel. Click OK to close the Unsharp Mask dialog box. 4. In the Channels panel, turn on the composite channel (here, that’s RGB) to see your new and improved full-color image. You’re done! If you want to see before and after versions of your image, open the Layers panel and toggle the Sharpen layer’s visibility eye (page 82) off and on. Tip: Another, more advanced way to sharpen your image is to use the channel with the highest contrast to create an intricate edge mask. You can read all about that process on page 475. chapter 5: controlling color with channels 217
chapter 6 Cropping, Resizing, and Rotating C ropping and resizing images are among the most basic edits you’ll ever make, but they’re also among the most important. A bad crop—or no crop—can ruin an image, while a good crop can improve it tenfold by snipping away useless or distracting material. And knowing how to resize an image—by changing either its file size or its overall dimensions—can be crucial when it’s time to email an image, print it, or post it on a website. Cropping is pretty straightforward; resizing, not so much. To resize an image correctly, you first need to understand the relationship between pixels and resolution—and how they affect image quality. (That can of worms gets opened on page 238.) Rotating images, on the other hand, is just plain fun. In this chapter, you’ll learn more than you ever wanted to know about cropping— from general guidelines to the many ways of cropping in both Photoshop and Cam- era Raw (a powerful photo-correcting application that comes with Photoshop—see Chapter 9). You’ll also discover how to resize images without—and this is crucial— losing image quality. Perhaps most important, you’ll understand once and for all what resolution really is, when it matters, and how to change it without trashing your image. Finally, you’ll spend some quality playtime with the various Transform commands. Cropping Images There’s a reason professional photos look so darn good. Besides being shot with fancy cameras and receiving some post-processing fluffing, they’re also composed or cropped extremely well (or both). Cropping means eliminating distracting ele- ments in an image by cutting away unwanted bits around the edges. Good crops accentuate the subject, drawing the viewer’s eye to it; and bad crops are, well, just bad, as you can see in Figure 6-1. 219
Cropping Images Figure 6-1: Left: A poorly cropped im- age can leave the viewer distracted by extraneous stuff around the edges, like the wall and window reflection here. Right: A well-cropped image forces the viewer to focus on the subject by eliminating distractions (in this case, the empty space in the background). This crop also gives the subject a little breathing room in the direction she’s facing, which is always a good idea (see the next figure for more examples). Technically, you can crop before you take a photo by moving closer to the subject (also called “cropping with your feet”) and repositioning the subject within the frame. However, if you don’t get the shot right when you’re out in the field, Photo- shop can fix it after the fact. But before you go grabbing the Crop tool, you need to learn a few guidelines. The Rule of Thirds Once you understand the rule of thirds, a compositional guideline cherished by both photography and video pros, you’ll spot it in almost every image you see. The idea is to divide every picture into nine equal parts using an imaginary tic-tac-toe grid. If you position the image’s horizon on either the top or the bottom line—never the center—and the focal point (the most important part of the image) on one of the spots where the lines intersect, you create a more interesting shot. It’s simpler than it sounds—just take a look at Figure 6-2. Note: In Photoshop CS5, the Crop tool actually comes with a rule-of-thirds grid, making this rule easier than ever to grasp and follow! Photoshop CS5: The Missing Manual 220
Cropping Images Figure 6-2: Top: Imagine a tic-tac-toe grid atop every image. Notice that the interesting bits of the photos are positioned where the lines intersect. Most digital cameras let you add such a grid to the camera’s screen to help you compose your shots. To figure out how to turn it on, you may have to root through your camera’s menus or (shudder) dig out the owner’s manual. Bottom: Before you crop, notice the direction your subject is facing. A good crop gives the subject room to move—or, in this case, fly—through the photo. If the im- age were cropped tightly to the boy’s face on the right side, it’d look weird because he’d (theoretically) smack into the edge of the image if he flew away. Creative Cropping Along with applying the rule of thirds, pros also crop in unexpected ways, as Figure 6-3 shows. Unconventional cropping is yet another way to add visual interest to catch the viewer’s eye. Creative cropping is especially important when you’re dealing with super-small im- ages, such as those in a thumbnail gallery or on a website where several images vie for attention. In such small images, people can see few, if any, details; and, if the photo contains people, you can forget being able to identify them. Here are some tips for creating truly enticing, teensy-weensy images: • Recrop the image. Instead of scaling down the original, focus on a single ele- ment in the image. You often don’t need to include the whole subject for people to figure out what it is (Figure 6-3, middle, is a good example). • Sharpen again after resizing. Even if you sharpened (digitally enhanced the fo- cus of) the original, go ahead and resharpen it post-resizing using the Unsharp Mask filter (page 463). Chapter 11 has the full story on sharpening. • Add a border. To add a touch of class to that tiny ad or thumbnail, give it an elegant hairline border (page 183) or rounded edge (page 147). chapter 6: cropping, resizing, and rotating 221
Cropping Images Figure 6-3: Top: Challenge yourself to think outside the box and crop in unexpected ways. You may not think cropping someone’s face in half is a good idea, but here’s an example where it works. Middle: When you’re close-cropping, you often don’t need to reveal the whole subject. For example, this piece of zebra is more visually interesting than the whole animal, and it’s still obvious what it’s a photo of. Bottom: Here’s proof that you can’t always trust what you see! Cropping can easily alter the perceived mean- ing of an image. For example, the left-hand photo has been creatively cropped to suit the headline, “Sea Muffin Wins by a Mile!” But the original photo on the right reveals another story. Now that you’ve absorbed a few cropping guidelines, you’re ready to read about the many ways you can crop in Photoshop, starting with the most common. The Crop Tool Photoshop tools don’t get much easier to use than the good ol’ Crop tool. Press C to grab it from the Tools panel and then drag diagonally to draw a box around the bits of the image you want to keep. As you can see in Figure 6-4, CS5’s Crop tool comes with its own rule-of-thirds grid. To move the crop box as you’re drawing it, press and hold the space bar while dragging. When you’ve got the crop box where you want it, let go of the space bar and continue drawing the box. Tip: If you draw a crop box and then decide you don’t want to crop your photo after all, no problem. You can bail out of a crop-in-progress by pressing the Esc key, or clicking the Cancel button in the Options bar (the circle with a slash through it). Photoshop CS5: The Missing Manual 222
Cropping Images Figure 6-4: Left: You can find the Crop tool (circled) in the Tools panel. Right: After you draw a box on your image, Pho- toshop gives you an idea of what the end result will look like by darkening the edges that’ll be cropped out. You can easily resize, reposition, and even rotate the crop box by fol- lowing the instructions in this section. Press Return (Enter on a PC) or double- click anywhere inside the box to accept the crop when you get it just right. If you’re not a fan of the new rule-of-thirds grid, you can use the Crop Guide Overlay pop-up menu in the Options bar to turn it off, or switch to a regular document grid (page 70). (This pop-up menu is only available if you have an active crop box.) As soon as you let go of the mouse, Photoshop helpfully darkens the outer portion of the image to give you an idea of what’s destined for the trash bin. (This darkened portion is called a shield.) Grab any square handle to resize the box or click inside the box and drag to reposition it (your cursor turns into a tiny arrow). When you like what you see, press Return (Enter on a PC) or double-click inside the crop box to accept it. Keep in mind, though, that when you accept a crop, Photoshop deletes everything in the shielded area permanently—unless you undo the deletion right away. So if you change your mind immediately after wielding the crop axe, press �-Z (Ctrl+Z on a PC) to undo it or step backwards in the History panel (page 27). Better yet, if you like the crop but want to make sure you keep a copy of the original, uncropped version, go to File➝Save As right after you crop the photo and give it a new name. chapter 6: cropping, resizing, and rotating 223
Cropping Images Tip: You can toggle the crop shield off and on by pressing the forward slash key (/). You can also change the shield’s color and transparency using the Options bar (see Figure 6-5) but these settings are visible only when a crop box is active. Better yet, leave the shield on and change the opacity to 100 percent for a slick, solid-black background that lets you really see what the cropped image looks like. Cropping and hiding Normally when you crop an image, Photoshop deletes the outer edges—they’re gone forever. But if you’re cropping a layered file (see Chapter 3 for the scoop on layers) or a single-layered file that has an unlocked Background, you can tell Photoshop not to vaporize the cropped material, making it easy to retrieve if you change your mind. To do that, head up to the Options bar and, in the Cropped Area section, turn on the Hide radio button shown in Figure 6-5; Photoshop politely hides the cropped area outside the document’s margins instead of deleting it. That way, even though you won’t see it onscreen, it’s still part of your file. If you want to resurrect the cropped portion, choose Image➝Reveal All to make Photoshop resize the canvas and reveal anything that’s loitering outside the edges of the document (in this case, the bits you cropped). If you want to bring back just a portion of the cropped area, press V to grab the Move tool (see page 178) and drag the image back into view. Figure 6-5: The Delete and Hide radio buttons appear after you draw a crop box, and they’re active only when you’re cropping a file that doesn’t have a locked Background or when you’re cropping a mul- tilayered file (they’re grayed out any other time). If you want to hide the portion of the canvas covered by the crop shield (rather than permanently delete it), turn on the Hide radio button. After you crop, the cut bits dangle be- yond the document’s new margins—so you can bring them back if you want to. For fickle folks, this is the only way to roll. Photoshop CS5: The Missing Manual 224
Cropping Images Cropping with perspective If you shoot an image at an angle and then find you need to straighten it (like the frame shown in Figure 6-6, left), you can crop the image and change its perspective at the same time using the Crop tool’s Perspective setting. Note: Photoshop won’t let you crop with perspective if you’ve turned on the Hide option discussed in the previous section. In that case, set the Cropped Area to Delete and then turn on the Perspective setting. Figure 6-6: Left: Cropping to perspec- tive can instantly (and painlessly) straighten objects shot at an angle, like this painting. Right: This trick doesn’t work so well on living crea- tures, however, as it can leave them a bit distorted, as shown here. To crop with perspective, first draw a crop box around the object you want to straighten. (The box doesn’t have to be exactly aligned with the object, but you do want to grab the whole object.) Next, turn on the Perspective checkbox in the Op- tions bar and then drag the corner handles so the lines of the crop box are parallel to (or on top of) the angled lines in your image. When everything’s lined up, press Return (Enter on a PC) or double-click inside the box to accept the crop. If the planets are properly aligned, the cropped image looks nice and straight (Figure 6-6, bottom left). Be careful, though: This tool distorts images and can leave living crea- tures looking like they were photographed in a funhouse mirror (Figure 6-6, bottom right). chapter 6: cropping, resizing, and rotating 225
Cropping Images Cropping to a specific size Sometimes you’ll want to crop precisely, like when you’re cropping a photo to fit in a 4"×6" frame. In that case, you can use the Options bar to enter the width, height, and resolution (page 238) of the final image to restrict the crop to a certain size so that it prints perfectly. Note: As with most of Photoshop’s dialog boxes and panels, any changes you make in the Options bar stay changed until you change them back. So the next time you crop an image to a specific size, remem- ber to click the Clear button (shown at the far right of Figure 6-7) to empty the dimension fields so your crop boxes won’t be restricted to the last measurements you used. Figure 6-7: Tool Preset picker If you know the exact dimensions you want your final, cropped image to be, type them into the Options bar’s Width and Height fields (circled). If you want to copy another image’s dimensions (so that you can base a crop on those measure- ments), open that model image and then click the Front Image button (also circled) to snag its di- mensions. When you click in the document you want to crop, the copied dimensions appear in the Options bar, ready for you to use. To enter custom dimensions, press C to grab the Crop tool and then head up to the Options bar and enter measurements in the width and height fields (be sure to include units—see the Note below). Alternatively, you can choose one of the generic sizes listed in the Crop tool’s Preset menu, shown in Figure 6-7. If you plan to print the final result, you’ll also need to enter a resolution (page 238); otherwise, you can leave this box blank. Photoshop CS5: The Missing Manual 226
Cropping Images Note: When you enter a custom crop size, be sure to include a unit of measurement, such as px for pixels or in for inches. Otherwise, Photoshop assumes you mean the unit of measurement that’s set in your preferences, which may not be what you want (see page 36 to learn how to change this setting). Now, when you “draw” the crop box—actually, you just need to click your image— it’s constrained to the aspect ratio (the relationship between width and height) of the dimensions you entered. Once you accept the crop, the area inside the box perfectly matches the dimensions you entered. If the image gets bigger inside the document window after you crop to a specific size, that means you’ve enlarged the pixels by entering too high a resolution for the box you drew (flip to page 238 to learn about resolution). In that case, press �-Z (Ctrl+Z on a PC) to undo the crop and then draw a smaller crop box, or, in the Options bar, enter smaller dimensions or a lower resolution (or both). Zooming in by cropping The Crop tool’s flexibility is all well and good, but what if you want to preserve the original width-to-height relationship (the aspect ratio) of an image? Say you’ve been out shooting in the Texas plains and, once you’re parked back at your computer, you decide to zoom in on that prairie dog you photographed by cropping out all the dirt around him. Sure, you can draw a crop box around the little rodent, but you have no way of preserving the shape of the original photo—Photoshop doesn’t have any pre- sets for cropping to specific aspect ratios (see Figure 6-8). You can work around this problem in two ways, both of which involve selecting the whole photo first. Here’s how to zoom into a photo without losing its original shape: • Open a photo and press C to grab the Crop tool. Draw a box around the entire image and, while holding the Shift key, drag one of the corner handles inward. Then click inside the box and drag it into the right position. When you’ve got it in just the right spot, press Return (Enter on a PC) to accept the crop. • Open a photo, select its layer, and then press �-A (Ctrl+A on a PC) to select everything on that layer. This creates a selection around the entire photo that you can resize and then use to crop. Choose Select➝Transform Selection, and, while holding down the Shift key (to preserve the selection’s aspect ratio), drag one of the square corner handles inward. If you want, reposition the bounding box by dragging it just like you would a crop box. When you get the bounding box where you want it, press Return (Enter on a PC) or double-click inside the box to accept it. Now, choose Image➝Crop to get rid of the portion outside the selection and then dismiss the selection by pressing �-D (Ctrl+D). Either way, you’ve just zoomed in on an item in the photo and cropped it to the same aspect ratio as the original. Give yourself a gold star! chapter 6: cropping, resizing, and rotating 227
Cropping Images Figure 6-8: Here you can see the original photo (top), along with the kind of crop you might perform freehand (bottom left) and a crop that preserves the aspect ratio of the original (bottom right). Preserving the aspect ratio is handy when you’re preparing pho- tos for a slideshow and they all need to be the same shape. Adding Polaroid-style photo frames The Crop tool isn’t all work and no play; you can use it for fun stuff like creating a Polaroid-style photo frame like the one in Figure 6-9. Besides being a fast way to add a touch of creativity to your image, this kind of frame lets you add a caption to com- memorate those extra-special moments. Here’s how to add a frame to your photo: Note: To practice the Polaroid maneuver on your own computer, visit this book’s Missing CD page at www.missingmanuals.com/cds and download the practice file Trekkers.jpg. 1. Open an image and double-click its Background layer to make it editable. Remember, the Background layer is initially locked for the reasons explained in the box on page 85. Until you unlock it, Photoshop restricts what you can do with it. Just give it a quick double-click to unlock it, and—if you want—give it a new name in the resulting dialog box. 2. Enlarge the document window so you can see the gray work area all the way around the image. To enlarge the window, drag its bottom-right corner until you’ve got a few inches of gray space on all four sides of your image. This bit of window resizing makes it easier to see what you’re doing in the next step. Photoshop CS5: The Missing Manual 228
Cropping Images Figure 6-9: Left: To create the look of a Polaroid, use the Crop tool (page 222) to add canvas space around your photo as shown here. Be sure to add a little extra room at the bottom for a caption! Right: When you add a solid white layer and then add even more canvas space, the Polaroid really starts to take shape. Next, add a caption, merge the layers, and then rotate your image. Finish off the effect by adding a drop shadow (page 129) large enough to show around all four edges. Engage! 3. Add canvas space with the Crop tool. Draw a box around the image and, while you hold down the Option key (Alt on a PC), drag one of the crop handles outward about one-quarter inch and then release the key. Tip: Holding down Option (Alt) while you drag the corner handles of a crop box forces all four sides of the box to expand or shrink simultaneously by the same amount. (Otherwise, you’d have to move each handle one after another.) Press and hold the Shift key to resize the box as a perfect square. Next, drag the bottom-middle crop handle down another one-quarter inch (that’s where the caption goes). Finally, press Return (Enter on a PC) to tell Photo- shop you want to keep the new canvas space. You should see a checkerboard background around the photo (see Figure 6-9). Note: If you don’t make the Background layer editable before you increase the canvas space, the area around the photo ends up the color of your background color chip instead of transparent, so you can’t see the checkerboard pattern. If you have this problem, press �-Z (Ctrl+Z on a PC) and start over with step 1. chapter 6: cropping, resizing, and rotating 229
Cropping Images 4. Create a new layer and drag it below the original photo layer. At the bottom of the Layers panel, click the new layer icon (it looks like a piece of paper with a folded corner). To keep from covering up the whole photo in the next step, drag the new layer’s thumbnail below the original layer. Alternatively, you can ⌘-click (Ctrl-click) the icon to make Photoshop add the new layer be- low the currently active layer. 5. Fill the new layer with white to form the Polaroid edges. Choose Edit➝Fill, pick “white” from the Use pop-up menu, and then click OK. Now you’ve got a Polaroid-style frame around your photo. (For this technique, it’s better to use an image layer than a Solid Color Fill layer—see page 91— because the latter automatically resizes to fill your canvas, making the Polaroid effect impossible.) 6. Increase your canvas space again so you have room to rotate the image and add a drop shadow. Press C to grab the Crop tool and draw a box around the image yet again. Add equal space on all four sizes by dragging any corner handle while you hold down the Option key (Alt on a PC). Press Return (Enter) to accept the crop. 7. Add a caption with the Type tool. Press T to select the Type tool (page 583) and add a caption toward the bot- tom of the frame. Here’s your big chance to use a handwriting typeface! Bradley Hand is one good option. 8. Select all three layers. When you have everything just right, hop over to the Layers panel and �-click (Ctrl-click) to select the image layer, Type layer, and white Polaroid-frame layer so you can rotate the whole mess in the next step. 9. If you like, rotate the image just a bit to give it more character. Summon the Free Transform command by pressing �-T (Ctrl+T on a PC) and then rotate your photo by positioning your cursor just below the bottom-right handle. When the cursor turns into a double-sided curved arrow, drag slightly up or down. Press Return (Enter) to accept the rotation or press Esc to reject it and try again. 10. Select the white background layer and add a drop shadow (page 129). Since you selected all three layers in order to rotate them, click the white back- ground layer to select just that one. Click the tiny cursive fx at the bottom of the Layers panel and choose Drop Shadow (page 129), and then increase the shadow’s size quite a bit so it’s visible on all four sides of your new Polaroid frame. Move the shadow around by dragging in your document and soften it by lowering the opacity in the Layer Style dialog box. Click OK when you’re finished. Photoshop CS5: The Missing Manual 230
Cropping Images When you’re all done, you can add a solid white Fill layer to the bottom of your layer stack to make your image look like Figure 6-9, right. Fun stuff! Cropping with Selection Tools You can also crop an image within the boundaries of a selection. This technique is helpful if you’ve made a selection and then need to trim the image down to roughly that same size. The Rectangular Marquee tool (page 139) works best for this kind of cropping—though all the selection tools work—because Photoshop, bless its elec- tronic heart, can crop only in rectangles. After you draw a selection, choose Image➝Crop. Because you’re not using the Crop tool, you won’t get resizing handles, a shield, or the ability to hide the crop, but the document still gets reduced to the edges of your selection. If you’re attempting to crop with an irregular or elliptical selection, you’ll still end up with a rectangular image that encompasses the area you selected. Trimming Photos Down to Size If your image has a solid-colored or transparent (checkerboard) background, you may find yourself chipping away at its edges to save space in the image’s final des- tination (a website, a book—whatever). The trim command is incredibly handy for those situations, especially when you’re trying to tightly crop an image that has a drop shadow or reflection. Such embellishments make the image’s true edges hard to see—and therefore tough to crop—because they fade into the background. So it’s easy to, say, accidentally chop a drop shadow in half when you’re cropping. Fortu- nately, you can enlist Photoshop’s help in finding the edges of an image and have it do the cropping for you. To whittle down your photo, choose Image➝Trim and, in the resulting dialog box (shown in Figure 6-10), use the radio buttons to tell Photoshop whether you want to zap transparent pixels or pixels that match the color at the document’s top left or bottom right. Next, choose which sides of the image you want to trim by turning their checkboxes on or off and clicking OK. Photoshop trims the document down to size with zero squinting—or error—on your part. Note: The Trim command was used on every screenshot in this book to crop the images as closely as possible. It’s a massive timesaver if you work in production! chapter 6: cropping, resizing, and rotating 231
Cropping Images Figure 6-10: If you have a hard time seeing the edges of an image you want to crop tightly, let Photoshop do it for you by using the Trim dialog box. In this example, the goal is to get rid of the extra transparent space at the bottom so the photo is as small as possible. You can do that by choosing Transparent Pixels in the dialog box shown here. Cropping and Straightening Photos In Photoshop CS5, you can use the Ruler tool to straighten individual images in a snap; just flip back to page 71 to learn how. However, if you’ve painstakingly scanned a slew of photos into a single document, you can save yourself a lot of work by having Photoshop crop, straighten, and split them into separate files for you—all with the flick of a single menu command. With the page of photos open, choose File➝Automate➝“Crop and Straighten Photos”. Photoshop instantly calculates the angle of the overall image’s edge (that is, the edge of the photo bits) against the white background, rotates the images, and then duplicates all the photos into their own perfectly cropped and straightened documents, as shown in Figure 6-11. It’s like magic! Note: The “Crop and Straighten Photos” command also works on documents that contain just one image, provided the picture has white space on all four sides (like the white space you’d have between photos if you scanned several at once). It also works on layered files (see Chapter 3). Just select the layer of the image you want to extract, run the command, and Photoshop strips that layer out into its own document and deletes it from the original document. If that layer contains several images, they’ll get stripped out into their own individual documents. Photoshop CS5: The Missing Manual 232
Cropping Images Figure 6-11: It’s tough to get a bunch of photos perfectly straight when you’re scanning (heck, just putting the lid down moves ’em!). This is a prime opportunity to use the “Crop and Straighten Photos” command. In one fell swoop, the photos (top) get straight- ened, cropped, and copied into their own individual documents (bottom) right before your eyes. Tip: If you want Photoshop to crop and straighten a few photos that all reside on a single layer (but not all of them), draw a selection around each of them before you run the command (use any selection tool and hold the Shift key to add to the selection). Photoshop processes only those photos, provided they (and their individual selection boxes) are next to each other. If they’re not, Photoshop crops and straightens everything in between, forcing you to close the new, unwanted documents. Cropping and Straightening in Camera Raw Camera Raw is an amazing piece of software that photographers use to edit the color and lighting of images (you’ll learn loads more about it in Chapter 9). It gets installed with Photoshop, so you don’t have to download it or pay for it separately. Using Camera Raw to crop and straighten your photos has two big advantages: • You can undo the crop or straighten (or both) at any time—whether the file you’re working on is Raw, JPEG, or TIFF. In Chapter 9, you’ll learn how to use Camera Raw for all three file formats. chapter 6: cropping, resizing, and rotating 233
Cropping Images • If you have several photos that need to be cropped in a similar manner, you can crop them all at once. Talk about a timesaver! To open an image in Camera Raw, select the image in Bridge or CS5’s new Mini Bridge (see Appendix C, online) and then choose File➝“Open in Camera Raw”, or press �-R (Ctrl+R on a PC). Then follow the instructions in the next section to crop one or more images. Cropping images You follow the exact same steps to crop images in Camera Raw as you do with Photo- shop CS5’s Ruler tool (page 71). With an image open, select the Crop tool at the top of the Camera Raw window and draw a box around the image, as Figure 6-12 illustrates. Then click the Crop tool and hold down the mouse button to reveal a handy pull-down menu that lists aspect ratios as well as a Custom option. If you pick Custom, a dialog box appears so you can enter a specific ratio or dimensions in pixels, inches, or centimeters. Whichever method you use, Camera Raw places a crop box atop your image, which you can resize by dragging any resulting handle or the box itself. Tip: You can exit the crop box by pressing the Esc or Delete key (Backspace on a PC) while the Crop tool is active or by choosing Clear Crop from the Crop tool’s pull-down menu. When you’re finished, press Return (Enter on a PC) to see what the newly cropped image looks like. If you need to edit or undo the crop, just grab the Crop tool to make the crop box reappear for your editing pleasure. If you have several images that need to be cropped in the same way, the steps are almost identical. Just open the images in Camera Raw by selecting them in Bridge or Mini Bridge (see Appendix C, online) or simply by finding them on your hard drive and opening them from there. When the thumbnails appear in the filmstrip on the left side of the Camera Raw window, click the Select All button and then use the Crop tool as described in this section. All the photos get cropped simultaneously, and each filmstrip thumbnail updates according to how you cropped the first image. (A tiny Crop tool icon, circled in Figure 6-12, also appears at the bottom left of each thumbnail.) At this point, you can click: • The Save Images button to convert, rename, or relocate the file(s)—or any combination of those tasks—so you don’t overwrite the original. If you save them in Photoshop format, you can tell Camera Raw to preserve the cropped pixels in case you want to resurrect them later (see Figure 6-13 for details). • The Open Images button to apply the changes and open the photo(s) in Photoshop. Photoshop CS5: The Missing Manual 234