Cropping options do my head in!!

DayDreamer · 4 Jul 2013

Not sure if this is just me but I seem to spend a long time trying differing crops & ratios. I find myself holding my fingers such I create a square then 3/2 then 4/3 then 16/10 then 16/9 - well all are guesses & I am wondering if there is a gadget anyone uses (made, or bought) which is more accurate to hold against the monitor as a quick way of doing what I do.

Any suggestions welcome - too many choices :thinking:

Danzaroonie · 4 Jul 2013

I know lightroom has some preset crops you can select and then review the crop in the navigation panel....this make things quicker and easier to view...

Another option is just an A4 bit of paper...full screen the image and use the A4 paper to block parts of the images off..

Rhodese · 4 Jul 2013

Good morning John,
John in the days of yore we used “Ls”, two pieces of material cut in the shape of an L. Like the mask on an enlarger easel. They would be say, 300mm (1ft) on the long side, 200mm (8in) on the short and 50mm (2in) wide cut from a stiff card or such then painted mat black.
You then laid one on top of the other, short side on long side and moved them about on an image to make a frame a mask, i.e. a crop.
They became pretty much redundant with the photoshop crop tool.
Rhodese.
PS. John if you make a small version you can hold them at a stretched hand distance from your face and see the crop before you take the shot. An empty 35mm or 6cm square slide holders work in the same way relative to a standard lens.
Rhodese.

DayDreamer · 4 Jul 2013

Danzaroonie said:
I know lightroom has some preset crops you can select and then review the crop in the navigation panel....this make things quicker and easier to view...

Another option is just an A4 bit of paper...full screen the image and use the A4 paper to block parts of the images off..

Thanks Dan

I use LR4 but I'm just blooming impatient & soon get/got fed up with trying those crops. Unless you mean you can make pre-sets that go in the Develop Panel on the left & show in the Navigator top left - now that would be very fast so I will look into if I can create them. Unless there are some to download from somewhere :thinking:

DayDreamer · 4 Jul 2013

Rhodese said:
Good morning John,
John in the days of yore we used Ls, two pieces of material cut in the shape of an L. Like the mask on an enlarger easel. They would be say, 300mm (1ft) on the long side, 200mm (8in) on the short and 50mm (2in) wide cut from a stiff card or such then painted mat black.
You then laid one on top of the other, short side on long side and moved them about on an image to make a frame a mask, i.e. a crop.
They became pretty much redundant with the photoshop crop tool.
Rhodese.

Good morning Mr R & yes I recall those days, being of a mature age, but had forgotten exactly what you've reminded me of (

) the two bits of L-shaped card.

Thanks for the nudge to my failing memory :clap:

Spuriousfish · 4 Jul 2013

Select the Crop Tool in the Develop Module. Next to the Padlock that locks the aspect ratio you'll see the current ratio and a drop down arrow.

Click on the drop down arrow and a list appears. There's the option to enter custom ratios as well as some preset standards.

Colin

DayDreamer · 4 Jul 2013

Spuriousfish said:
Select the Crop Tool in the Develop Module. Next to the Padlock that locks the aspect ratio you'll see the current ratio and a drop down arrow.

Click on the drop down arrow and a list appears. There's the option to enter custom ratios as well as some preset standards.

Colin

Yes I am doing just that but too slow for my impatience but thanks for suggestion

symmetricalOCD · 4 Jul 2013

I know what you mean john, it can take ages to decide, I like mr Bean use my hand and create all the ratios manually, that way you can visualise the final outcome in the external world, hope that helps, Ben.

DayDreamer · 5 Jul 2013

symmetricalOCD said:
I know what you mean john, it can take ages to decide, I like mr Bean use my hand and create all the ratios manually, that way you can visualise the final outcome in the external world, hope that helps, Ben.

Hi Ben when I use my hands I sometimes get circles & triangles & I don't think LR4, or in your case LR5, has these cropping size options --- yet :nuts: