Adobe Photoshop Basics

Now let's get some practice working with the crop tool. Right click each of these files names and download the images to your computer so you can practice these exercises:
croppractice1.jpg
croppractice2.jpg

The exercises on this page are for users of version 5.x or 6.0.

Practice Exercise 1
Changing Shape, Increasing Canvas Size & Adding Borders

Before Cropping

After Cropping

Crop the image to get the results shown above. Below is a screen shot of the approximate selection you'll need to make.

Next use the crop tool to expand your canvas size and add a black border to the image at the same time. First select black for the background color. Next make a crop selection and drag the borders outside of the document area as show to the left. When you're happy with the selection, commit to the crop and you should get something like the example here.

Practice Exercise 2
Rotating with the Crop Tool

Before Cropping

After Cropping

Crop the image to get the results shown above. Below is a screen shot of the approximate selection you'll need to make.

In Photoshop 5, you can also crop to a selection using the rectangular marquee tool. When a rectangular selection is active, just choose Image > Crop.

This concludes the crop exercises for version 5.x users. You may continue to the next section on the History Palette. Version 6.0 users can practice the additional crop tool features in the next page of exercises.

Photoshop 5.x | Photoshop 6.0

Some images from Nova Development's Art Explosion 600,000.