Cropping in Lightroom (how to crop, resize and straighten photos)

Although we should always try to get as much right in camera to save ourselves time in post production, sometimes cropping in Lightroom is the best option and is a great way to improve the impact of a photo.

Just be aware that when you nibble away at the size of the original image you cut away pixels.

The fewer pixels you have, the more it’ll affect the potential size of your photo for printing or posting online. Most of the time it won’t matter as most of us won’t print that big (we’re talking huge, billboard size prints), so a bit of cropping is fine.

However, if you crop an image down to a very small part of the original image, you might affect the quality of your image and will restrict print size options. This also depends on your camera – top of the range cameras offer higher megapixels than entry level cameras, so produce images that can be cropped further.

That’s all the warnings finished. Now let’s get into the huge range of options for cropping photos in Lightroom.

Editing tips for cropping in Lightroom

Can you crop a photo in Lightroom?

You absolutely can crop photos in Lightroom. In fact, you’d be amazed at just how powerful the Lightroom cropping tool is, because there’s so much more to it than simply resizing an image.

Reasons to crop in Lightroom:

  • Straightening
  • Resizing
  • Composition

How to open the Lightroom crop tool

Lightroom crop tool

There are two ways to open the Lightroom crop tool:

  • In the Develop module, select the crop tool by clicking on the frame icon just below the histogram on the right hand side of the screen
  • In any module, press R on your keyboard to take you to the Develop module and open the crop panel at the same time

How to use Lightroom crop tool to straighten photos

When you straighten a photo in Lightroom some of the edges will be cropped off as the photo rotates. How much gets cut off depends on how much you need to straighten the image.

Quick tip…

If you’re not good at holding the camera straight, leave extra space around your subject when photographing, until you’re better at it, so that you don’t risk cropping off vital bits when you straighten the image in post production. (PS – I had that problem for ages when photographing in portrait orientation. I was always over rotating the camera.)

Although it’s not the only way to straighten a photo in Lightroom, the Lightroom cropping tool is great for straightening photos, and the one I use the most. You have four straightening options:

  • Auto – one click and Lightroom will straighten your photo (but it might not always work perfectly)
  • Angle – draw a horizontal line across the photo (click the ruler or hold down Ctrl or Cmd with your cursor over the photo, then click and drag to draw a line)
  • Angle – move the slider left or right to rotate the image
  • Manual (see below)

How to straighten pictures in Lightroom

My preferred method is straightening the image manually. With the crop tool open:

  • Position the cursor in the grey bit outside of the image
  • You’ll see the cursor change to a double ended arrow

Manually straighten photo in Lightroom

  • Click and drag the mouse up or down to rotate the image (a grid will show to help you align your photo to straight horizontal or vertical lines in the image)

guides for straightening photos

  • Release when you’re happy with the image (the areas that are cropped out will be darker)

Straighten photos with crop tool

  • When you close the crop tool the cropped off areas will not be visible.

Cropping in Lightroom for printing and resizing photos

Without getting deep into aspect ratio, which is essentially what we’re talking about when resizing photos for different print sizes, here’s a little intro to aspect ratio…

2.3 crop ratio

Most DSLRs and mirrorless cameras produce images with an aspect ratio of 3:2 (as above), regardless of whether they’re crop sensor or full frame cameras. The camera’s sensor determines the image ratio based on the ratio of the sensor itself, which is 3:2.

A 3:2 ratio image has one side that is 1.5 times wider than the shorter side. Prints that are 6×4, 9×6 12×8 inches etc have a 3:2 aspect ratio. So you can print photos from your DSLR or mirrorless camera at these sizes without having to crop them.

4.5 crop ratio

A 5:4 ratio (as above) is common for large and medium format film cameras, which ties in with the dimensions of the most popular print sizes and picture frames (e.g. 10×8, 20×16 etc). So for these print sizes you need to crop the image to a different aspect ratio if using a camera with a 3:2 ratio sensor (unless you set it to shoot to a 5:4 ratio).

Have you noticed that if you post a portrait orientation photo to Instagram you either have to crop it yourself, or accept that not the whole photo will show in the feed?

That’s because for some reason or other Instagram has set the specific aspect ratio of portrait orientation images to 5:4. It doesn’t make sense in a world where most cameras have a 3:2 ratio (unlike phone cameras), but at least it’s better than when every image had to be square, which is a 1:1 ratio. Who are we to argue with social media?

Can you crop and keep specific aspect ratio in Lightroom?

Yes, if you want to.

Maintain aspect ratio cropping in Lightroom

Adobe Lightroom helps you to either maintain the aspect ratio of your photo while cropping, or change it to a custom ratio. It’s simply a matter of locking or unlocking the aspect ratio. There are three ways to do this:

  • Click the padlock icon
  • Right click on the photo and click on “Constrain Aspect Ratio” in the drop down menu
  • Shortcut key – press A on your keyboard

Shortcut to constrain crop ratio in Lightroom

To maintain the image aspect ratio when cropping in Lightroom, make sure that the padlock is locked, then select one of the following:

  • Original aspect ratio (this is the default)
  • As shot ratio

To change the aspect ratio of a photo, for example to print a 10 x 8 inch photo, select from these two options:

  • Preset aspect ratio
  • Custom aspect ratio

Open cropping ratio options

How to use Lightroom aspect ratio presets

The most common crop sizes for photos are available as Lightroom presets in the cropping tool, making resizing images for print easy:

  • Click on the text (As Shot, Original or Custom), depending on what’s showing
  • Select the Lightroom crop preset you want
  • Position your cursor on the image and click and drag to crop ograb one of the side or corner crop handles of the photo and drag it in to where you want to crop

Pro tip: To alter all 4 sides of the image equally at the same time, hold down Alt (PC) or Option (Mac) then click and drag.

Cropping presets in Lightroom

How to set a custom aspect ratio

If you know the custom size you want for your image to create your own aspect ratio:

  • Click on the text (As Shot, Original or Custom), depending on what’s showing
  • Select “Enter Custom” from the drop down menu
  • Enter the aspect ratio into the boxes provided (width x length)

Set custom aspect ratio

How to use Lightroom to crop to any size

Of course, not every photo has to fit to a certain print size. Sometimes we just want a certain crop, because it looks best that way.

Adobe Lightroom has an answer for this too.

Lightroom crop cursor

With the crop tool open your cursor changes to a crop icon as you mouse over the crop area of your image.

To crop freehand:

  • Unlock the aspect ratio lock (type A on the keyboard or click on the lock)
  • Position your cursor on the image then click and drag to where you want to crop
  • Or grab one of the crop handles at the edge of the photo and drag it to where you want to crop
  • To alter 2 opposing sides of the image equally at the same time, hold down Alt (PC) or Option (Mac) while you click and drag

Pro tip: To crop all 4 sides of the image equally at the same time (ie maintain the crop aspect ratio) even when the lock is unlocked, hold down shift then click and drag.

click and drag to crop image

Cropping in Lightroom to improve composition

If you can’t get close enough to a subject to fill the frame, cropping in Lightroom is an easy way to achieve the look you want.

But there’s more to cropping for better composition than filling the frame.

Lightroom crop overlay tool for composition

Lightroom crop overlays are ideal for precise crops that follow the rules of photography composition. There are 8 overlays and the rule of thirds grid overlay is the first.

To speed up your workflow use the Lightroom crop shortcut by pressing O on the keyboard. Then to cycle through crop overlays every time you press the O key the Lightroom crop overlay will change.

8 Lightroom crop overlays

When you get to the golden triangle overlay (top right in the graphic above), if you hold down shift and click O the overlay flips horizontally.

Likewise for the golden spiral overlay, except there are a lot more options, as you can see below.

Crop overlay options in Lightroom

There’s even an overlay to help you see how your image would look in three different aspect ratios at once, which is ideal for deciding on cropping for a particular print size. They are:

  • 2 x 3
  • 5 x 7
  • 4 x 5

Aspect ratio guide for cropping in Lightroom

And there are two crop orientation options:

  • Landscape
  • Portrait

As before, you can use the keyboard shortcut to cycle between the different crop overlays, by holding down shift and clicking O on the keyboard.

How to copy a crop in Lightroom

How do I copy a crop in Lightroom?

I’m always looking for faster ways of editing in Lightroom Classic to speed up my post production workflow. Syncing adjustments is key to this.

If you have similar photos and you want them all to have the same crop, follow these steps in the Develop module:

  • Click the photo you want to copy
  • Hold down shift or Ctrl (PC) or Cmd (Mac) and select the photo/s you want to copy the crop to
  • Click the “Sync” button
  • Click the “Check None” button to ensure all options are deselected
  • Select “Crop” (the two sub commands will automatically be selected too)
  • Click the “Synchronize” button

Then check the positioning of the crop on the other photo/s to make sure that it’s where you want it.

If it’s not in quite the right place:

  • Select the photo you want to change
  • Open the crop tool in the right panel
  • Position your cursor anywhere within the cropped area
  • Click and drag it to where you want it
  • Release and close the crop tool

You can go back as many times as you like to change the crop.

To remove the crop, with the Lightroom crop tool open, just click “Reset” in the Crop & Straighten tool panel.

Lightroom crop tool shortcuts

Here’s a quick summary of shortcuts to speed up your Lightroom workflow when cropping in Lightroom:

  • R – open and close the crop tool from any module
  • X – change the crop from landscape to portrait and vice versa
  • A – unlock and lock the aspect ratio lock
  • Shift – to maintain aspect ratio while cropping, even if the aspect ratio lock is unlocked, hold down shift then click and drag
  • Alt+R / Option + R – to increase/decrease the crop on 2 opposing sides when aspect ratio is unlocked, hold down Alt (PC) or Option (Mac) then click and drag
  • Ctrl/Cmd – hold down Ctrl (PC) or Cmd (Mac) to change the cursor to a ruler then click and drag to draw a line to straighten an image
  • Esc – to close the crop panel

Leave a comment

If you have any questions about cropping in Lightroom, let us know in the comments.

Also, I love good news, so if my Lightroom cropping tips have helped you to understand how to crop in Lightroom, share that too.

4 thoughts on “Cropping in Lightroom (how to crop, resize and straighten photos)”

  1. Just when I thought I pretty much knew cropping and resizing in Lightroom, you proved there is more good stuff to learn. Excellent. Thanks!

    Reply
  2. I’m in Lightroom 4. Usually after cropping I can click and drag the image to reposition it within my cropped area. However now when I mouseover the image, the mouse cursor shows the aspect tool icon and I cannot click and drag the image. Rather, when I click, it begins drawing a box. Can’t figure out why the behaviour changed, nor how to change it back.

    Reply
  3. Ignore my last comment. I figured it out.

    I cropped my image, then edited in Topaz, so now I am working on the edited image it does not have the prior history (hence nor the remainder of the full size image).

    I guess I learned one more reason to recommend working in Topaz before doing most edits in LR.

    Reply
    • Hi Chris
      Glad you figured it out. I would leave cropping until you’ve completed all other edits – I also learned that one the hard way.

      Reply

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