Cropping in Photoshop
How to crop photos in Photoshop CC
In this support article, we will walk you through how to properly crop an image to prep for printing.
1) Open your file in Photoshop
2) Select the crop tool from the Tools bar on the left.
(If you don't have Tools open go to the top and select Window > Tools)
- After selecting the crop tool on the left, you will navigate to the Options menu at the top where you can change specific settings for the tool you selected.
(If you don't see the Options menu, you can open this by going to Window > Options)
- In the Options menu, select the drop down menu next to the cropping tool icon. Select the option for W x H x Resolution. The W stands for width and the H stands for Height)
3) Enter the final print dimensions + 300 dpi
Here you simply enter in the dimensions you want the final print to be + 300 px/inch in the 3rd field.
You can use the arrows between the width and height fields to switch the numbers. This allows you to switch between horizontal crop and vertical crop.
After entering in your settings, adjust the crop on the image so that it's the most aesthetically pleasing crop for your image.
4) Check pixel dimensions
If you go to Image > Image Size from your top level menu, you can check the dimensions of your freshly cropped image. As you can see in the photo above 2400 px = 8 inches if the resolution is set to 300 Pixels/Inch. Also, 3000 pixels = 10 inches at the same resolution.
For example, a properly cropped 5x7 print will be 1500 pixels by 2100 pixels at 300 pixels/inch.
At MUSEA, we check the pixel dimension of every single file that comes in to determine if a file is too small for proper printing or if needs cropped because it's outside the dimensions of the ordered print size.
5) Save As, Rename and Image Quality
Next, go to File > Save As. Make sure it's Save As. You don't want to save over an original file.
Quickly, add the ordered print size to the end of the file name.
On the final save screen, you can save the Image Quality to 10 to help reduce file size for uploading.
The naked eye can't tell the difference between a file quality setting of 12 or 10, so set it to 10.
That's it! You've properly cropped and saved a file for print!