Photoshop for Beginners: Tools Part Deux

The last two selection tools are the crop tool, which looks like..well...a cropping tool and the slice tool.
For editing, the slice tool is useless. Actually, it's pretty useless, period because anything you want to do for web is better served by any other tool than that one. But, I guess someone thinks it's worthwhile because it's always there. Suffice it to say,we won't bother covering it.

The crop tool, however, is very important in editing. Click on the crop tool and you will see in the options bar windows for width, height and resolution. Recommended resolutions are 72 pixels per inch for anything web based and 300 ppi for anything you wish to print. However!!!
You can not make an image that is already lower than 300ppi higher and expect good print results if you are keeping the same measurements. I try to keep in mind ratios; if an image is 16x20 at 72ppi when I open it, I can make it an 8x10 at maybe 150ppi, but no higher. Resolution means clarity and if you attempt to "stretch" your image, it will fall apart. Computers don't know inches, they only know pixels and resolution and "weight", which translates in mb, kb, gb, etc. But your crop tool will crop to just the size you want.

Drag your crop tool across what you want to be your finished photo. Keep in mind matting and framing by leaving a good amount of space around your subject. If it is a portrait, a good rule of thumb is minimum of forehead height from the top of the head to the top of the image. Look at, visualize it with a frame. Another guide is to keep the center mark either below the chin or at the breastbone to determine your center but be careful-the background should be pretty equal on each side. If you aren't sure, use the guide lines covered earlier-drag them out to where you might want your crop to be. Another good reason to use the guidelines is to ensure your image is straight. When you move your mouse to just outside the crop field, you will notice curved arrows. These will allow you to rotate the crop field to make your cropped image as straight as you desire.

When you have dragged your crop tool, you will notice in the Options bar that "Perspective" has shown up. When this option is checked, you can drag the corners of your crop to change the perspective of your image.

Now, just hit enter and your image is cropped!

The next time around, we will look at the brush tools and what they can do to fix or change your images.