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The Crop Tool in Photoshop CS2

By Sue Chastain, About.com

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Cropping Aspect Ratio

Cropping Aspect Ratio
Now when you select this preset, the crop tool will have a fixed aspect ratio of 4:6. You can size the crop marquee to any size, but it will always retain this aspect ratio, and when you commit to the crop, no resampling will occur, and the resolution of your image will not be changed. Because you've entered a fixed aspect ratio, the crop marquee will not show side handles — only corner handles.

Now that we have created a preset for a 4x6 crop, you can go ahead and create presets for other common sizes such as:
1x1 (Square)
5x7
8x10

You might be tempted to create presets for both portrait and landscape orientations of each size, but this is not necessary. To swap the width and height values for the crop tool, simply click on the double pointing arrows between the Width and Height fields on the options bar, and the numbers will swap.

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  6. The Crop Tool in Photoshop CS2 - Lesson 2: Working with Documents

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