The crop tool is stuck in a fixed shape. How can I make it work properly?

Question: The crop tool is stuck in a fixed shape. How can I make it work properly?

I've been seeing variations of this question a lot recently: "Can you tell me why I don't have side handles to use in Adobe Photoshop with the Crop Tool?"

Answer: Sometimes you may find that the crop tool won't let you define the area you want or it resamples your image after using it. This happens if you have numbers in the height, width, or resolution fields of the options bar (below the menu bar).

Here's how to fix it:
After selecting the crop tool, but before dragging out a crop rectangle, click the clear button on the options bar and the tool will behave normally again.

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