Terrible resolution after cropping?

[iamKarli]

I have Photoshop Elements 15 and running the newest Windows 10 software on a Dell XPS laptop.

I have never had an issue with my photoshop not working correctly. I had been working on some photos and was cropping them. I realized that the photos were coming out really blurry, which is unusual since they usually don't. Anyways, I would crop say a 500x900 photo to 200x200, but then it would blow it up to a 1000x1800 photo. But the resolution would super blurry. I don't understand what is going on. I've tried googling for answers. I have restarted my system to see if that would work, it did not. I haven't tried logging in and out of photoshop, and I was going to try a reset all settings, but couldn't find that. So any help would be greatly appreciate.

[hatstead]

iamKarli  wrote

. Anyways, I would crop say a 500x900 photo to 200x200, but then it would blow it up to a 1000x1800 photo.

These numbers are mystical. I don't understand how 200x200 fits in.

If you start with 500x900 and "blow it up" to 1000x1800, you haven't cropped, but rather you have enlarged.

If that is really what you wish to do, you need to resample. Even then, the picture may lose sharpness.

Go to Image>resize image size and work your way through this dialog.

What is the resolution of the file to start with?

[iamKarli]

So I have a 500x300 image, and I want to crop it into a square. But when I crop, it does crop into a square but the size of the image seems to be mysteriously increasing in size, so now it is a 1920x1920. I have included screenshots below. Both images are at 100% view/visibility.

Before crop

After crop

[hatstead · Accepted solution]

Activate the Rectangular Marquee tool

On the tool's option bar, enter width & height that you desire.

Go to Image menu>Crop

[iamKarli]

That worked. Thank you very much.

[hatstead]

You're welcome. Glad to help.

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