The Photoshop Tip of the Week for the Clients and Friends of Ben Willmore:

This week, let's talk about Photoshop 5's Crop tool:

When using the Crop tool, it's next to impossible to crop away a few pixels on the edge of your image, because it always snaps to the edge of the image. You can prevent the snapping by holding the Command key (Control in Windows) while dragging the edge of the cropping rectangle.

I hate using the Image>Canvas Size dialog box to add space to my document because it forces me to think in numbers when I'd rather add more space visually. Well, type F to go to full screen mode and then use the Crop tool and pull it beyond the edge of your image to add space to your file! Try it, you'll love it!

You can move the cropping rectangle without releasing the mouse button. Just hold the Spacebar and continue to drag... you'll be moving it instead of resizing it... then release the Spacebar and you'll be back to resizing the cropping rectangle, all without ever releasing the mouse button.

You can also crop your image by making a selection and then using the Image>Crop command. The Crop command only works on rectangular selections though, which makes it less than useful for many things. The next time you have a non-rectangular selection, just choose Edit>Copy and then File>New (The width, height and resolution will be picked up from what you just copied, so use the defaults), and then choose Edit>Paste.

When layers are moved so they extend beyond the edge of the document, the information is not discarded. This can make your image take up more space than needed on the hard drive. To trim all the information that is extending beyond the edge of the document, choose Select>All, then choose Image>Crop.

-Ben Willmore
Founder, Digital Mastery