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How do I unconstrain my cropping tool?

Community Beginner ,
Jan 03, 2008 Jan 03, 2008

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Hmmm. All of a sudden today my cropping tool will only do constrained crops --- that is, I can only crop perfect squares.

1. How do I unconstrain it?

2. How did this happen? I have never asked P'shop to constrain a crop. How did this default get set like this?

This is Photoshop CS2, by the way.

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Guide ,
Jan 03, 2008 Jan 03, 2008

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Look at your settings for the aspect ratio (width x height) in the Options Bar.

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Guest
Jan 03, 2008 Jan 03, 2008

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use the clear button

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New Here ,
Jan 04, 2008 Jan 04, 2008

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Thank you Buko. This was happening to me in CS3. Out of the blue?

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Community Beginner ,
Jan 08, 2008 Jan 08, 2008

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This "clear" is "Reset Tool" in the tool presets dropdown menu in Photoshop CS2. Thanks.

My second remains unanswered: how did this happen, did I inadvertently hit a shortcut key combination that constrains the cropping tool (and that shortcut is ... ; and it can be deactivated by ... ;)? Is this a factory preset that is re-invoked whenever I download an "upgrade"?

I'm just trying to learn about this software so that I can avoid some of these productivity-destroying distractions/detours in the future. This little bit of madness resulted in a four-day delay in getting proofs to somebody.

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Participant ,
Jan 08, 2008 Jan 08, 2008

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>This "clear" is "Reset Tool" in the tool presets dropdown menu in Photoshop CS2.

Nope, the "Clear" button is right there at the top in the Option Bar of the Crop Tool.

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People's Champ ,
Jan 08, 2008 Jan 08, 2008

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If you create a new document the cropping tool get the sizes of that document, maybe you created a square document before??

In any way, using the clear/reset does get you the free cropping, hit front image (beside it) and the sizes of the image you work on are selected.

You can also make a bunch of presets (which I find very useful)

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Community Beginner ,
Jan 08, 2008 Jan 08, 2008

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Re: charles badland: "Nope, the "Clear" button is right there at the top in the Option Bar of the Crop Tool."

Now I see it. Two different ways to free my cropping tool then; thanks.

Re: Omke Oudman: "If you create a new document the cropping tool get the sizes of that document, maybe you created a square document before??"

News to me. I've worked with oh several hundred images in Photoshop over the years, never encounted a situation before where the cropping tool was constrained. I can imagine situations where you might want the cropped area to have the exact same dimensions as the original, but it strikes me that this would be an exception to the usual state of affairs. Constraining the cropping tool to the proportions of your new image seems to be ... well, I don't understand why you might want this as the *default*.

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Participant ,
Jan 09, 2008 Jan 09, 2008

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You may have accidentally hit the "Front Image" button (next to the Clear button) while working on a square image. Or hit one of the crop tool presets. The settings are sticky until cleared, which I think is a good feature.

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People's Champ ,
Jan 09, 2008 Jan 09, 2008

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George: I forgot to mention that this happens only if you use New Document after copy and paste through the clipboard. The document then automatically follows the dimensions of the copied file size

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New Here ,
Jan 10, 2008 Jan 10, 2008

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"The settings are sticky until cleared, which I think is a good feature."

Sure, but not when you have to hit the "clear" button several times and then double-check to see what the tool is going to do when you change any values.

For me, the bizarre behavior comes up when I'm cropping images with one dimension filled in (i.e., 800px wide), then hit the switch button to make the height 800px (width is now blank). So far, so good. But when I change that height to say, 650 (still blank on width), it suddenly constrains the width to 800px (the previous value) WITHOUT showing anything in the width box! This can be confirmed by hitting the switch icon; suddenly it displays both values.

To fix it, one must manually delete the values and re-enter. Hey, that's productive. This wacky, incomprehensible bug has been around for a while, including CS3. HELLO ADOBE?

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Participant ,
Jan 10, 2008 Jan 10, 2008

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Yeah, looks like a bug. Have you sent in a bug report?

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Guide ,
Jan 10, 2008 Jan 10, 2008

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Nancy,

Adobe has taken increasingly to viewing its customers as annoying adversaries to be ignored or berated rather than listened to. :/

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New Here ,
Jan 11, 2008 Jan 11, 2008

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> George: I forgot to mention that this happens only if you use New Document after copy and paste through the clipboard. The document then automatically follows the dimensions of the copied file size<<br />
I've never noticed this in 15 years or so I've been using Photoshop. I've never had the constrain dimensions option invoke itself (although I've set it and forgotten about it before). I use the copy-paste option to create new documents frequently. It constrains the original window to the dimensions in the clipboard, but I've never seen it automatically set a constrain crop preference!

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New Here ,
Jan 11, 2008 Jan 11, 2008

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Incidentally, since it's only doing perfect squares, are you sure your shift key isn't sticking? Maybe it's the keyboard.

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Community Beginner ,
Mar 14, 2008 Mar 14, 2008

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Yes, that in fact is what it turned out to be: a keyboard that's starting to stick, starting with the left-side shift key. Managed to learn all kinds of interesting other things though as a result of my question. Thanks to all.

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New Here ,
Mar 29, 2020 Mar 29, 2020

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Did you try reinstall the program,I have fixed that before reinstaling clean windows and the program but yesterday there was an error again,if someone can helps me cos I need to finish my project for spanish company Diseño Web

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