Cropping and Straightening

There are some distinct advantages to cropping your photo in Camera Raw, rather than in Elements itself, and perhaps the #1 benefit is that you can return to Camera Raw later and return to the uncropped image. (Here’s one difference in how Camera Raw handles RAW photos vs. JPEG and TIFF photos: this “return to Camera Raw later and return to the uncropped image” holds true even for JPEG and TIFF photos, as long as you haven’t overwritten the original JPEG or TIFF file. To avoid overwriting, when you save the JPEG or TIFF in Elements, change the filename.)

Step One:

The fourth tool in Camera Raw’s toolbar is the Crop tool. By default, it pretty much works like the Crop tool in Elements (you click-and-drag it out around the area you want to keep), but it does offer some features that Elements doesn’t—like access to a list of preset cropping ratios. To get them, click-and-hold on the Crop tool and a pop-up menu will appear (as shown here). The Normal setting gives you the standard drag-it-where-you-want-it cropping. However, if you choose one of the cropping presets, then your cropping is constrained to a specific ratio. For example, choose the 2-to-3 ratio, click-and-drag it out, and you’ll see that it keeps the same aspect ratio as your original uncropped photo.