How to Crop Photos in Lightroom



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How to Crop Photos in Lightroom

This article is a part of our series Photo Editing in Lightroom 101. Throughout the series we’ll cover the details of Lightroom’s library and develop modules and how you can use Lightroom to improve your own photos. As new articles are published they will be added to this page. If you don’t want to miss future articles in the series, please subscribe to our RSS feed or our email newsletter.

The crop tool in Lightroom can be extremely helpful, especially when you are going to be printing your photos at a specific size. To access the crop tool, click on the crop tool’s icon just below the histogram, or use the keyboard shortcut “r”.

How to Crop Photos in Lightroom

When the crop tool is activated you will see some options open up in the right sidebar.

How to Crop Photos in Lightroom

The first option is the aspect ratio of the crop. If it says “as shot”, the crop will keep the same aspect ratio of the original photo. If you click on the little arrows it will open up more options.

How to Crop Photos in Lightroom

Here you’ll be able to choose from common aspect ratios like 1×1 (square), 8×10, 5×7, 4×6, and more. Select the aspect ratio that you want, and then use your mouse to arrange the crop that you want on the photo.

How to Crop Photos in Lightroom

When you have the crop the way you want it, hit “enter” and the crop will be applied.

There may be times when you are working with a photo in landscape orientation and you want to crop it into portrait orientation, or vice versa. This can seem a little tricky at first, because all of the aspect ratio options (except for the 1×1 square) assume that you want to keep the same orientation. All you have to do to change the crop from portrait to landscape, or vice versa, is to use the keyboard shortcut “x” while the crop tool is active.

How to Crop Photos in Lightroom

As you’re using the crop tool you’ll notice that by default it applies a grid overlay that can help you to apply the rule of thirds to your photos as you are cropping them. You can use the keyboard shortcut “o” to scroll through several alternate types of grids.

How to Crop Photos in Lightroom

You also have the option to turn the grid off, or to set it to auto so it only shows when you are manipulating the crop. Click the arrow next to “always” and you can change the setting for when the grid overlay is shown.

How to Crop Photos in Lightroom

If you apply a crop that you don’t like and you want to undo it, you can click on “reset” in the crop tool options. This will undo the crop without undoing any other changes that you have made in the develop module. If you were to click the big “reset” button at the bottom of the develop module it would reset EVERYTHING that you have done on that photo in the develop module.

How to Crop Photos in Lightroom

In addition to cropping, you can also straighten photos with this tool. Use the “angle” slider to adjust the angle.

How to Crop Photos in Lightroom

Using the crop tool is pretty simple and straightforward when you understand how it works. While you won’t need to crop every photo, there will be times when you can improve the composition with a simple crop, and it can also be extremely helpful for preparing your photos for specific sizes of prints.

If you don’t want to miss the other articles in this Photo Editing in Lightroom 101 series, please subscribe to our RSS feed or our email newsletter. As new articles are published they will be added to the series page, which will serve as an index for the entire series.