Cropping without decreasing photo quality

[schoelchybear]

Photoshop Gurus,

I've been recently learning more about Photoshop from a beginner's book, and so far I've pretty much got to grips with every tool explained so far except for one. Cropping. For some reason, every time I crop an image, the quality decreases so badly that the image almost becomes unusable.

Is there a setting that I should be changing or something that I'm doing wrong?

Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks alot

Alex

[iDad]

Sounds like you cropping a low resolutionto start with

[Gaussian]

I think you have the terminology wrong.... cropping is when you reduce the image size by clipping off one or several sides of the image, but the part of the image that is left stays exactly the same as it was before you made the crop... so there's no loss of quality.

Do you mean you are enlarging the image, or shrinking it?

[schoelchybear]

I'm definitely using the crop (pressing 'C')

I tried again though and maybe the quality isn't decreasing at all. Basically, whenever I do a crop, the actual size of the preview image just decreases so much, meaning I have to zoom in or Press 'Command + '0' to get it to a decent size.

Does that sound right? I just don't understand why Photoshop doesn't crop the image but keep it at the same size (instead of me having to zoom in again, thus messing me up psychologically)

thanks for your advice

[Gaussian]

I have to zoom in or Press 'Command + '0' to get it to a decent size.

Command+0 or CTRL+0 just makes the image fit on your screen.... so if it's a small image to start with it's going to stretch it way out and make it look a lot larger than it really is.

Try Command+1 or Ctrl+1 to get the actual size of the image.... do this BEFORE and after you crop the image and it should look exactly the same. Crop tool does not change the pixel dimensions of the image and does not change the quality at all. If the image looks bad to start with then there's not a lot you can do.

I just don't understand why Photoshop doesn't crop the image but keep it at the same size (instead of me having to zoom in again, thus messing me up psychologically)

Actually that's exactly what it does....

[KRF]

Yes this is right, to test this get the uncroped image, in a new layer put a red box round the part you want to crop and then zoom in again, this will show you what the image will look like once you have croped it, hope this help

[Steve]

It sounds like you have a low number in the "Resolution:" box on the top of the screen.

[schoelchybear]

Hi guys,

Thanks again for your help. I think I was mistaken in what my problem was.

I was wrong... when I crop the image, the pixel quality doesn't change. However even when I crop an image that is originally 4MB in size, when I try to save the resulting smaller image, the biggest size I can save it at (i.e. Level 12 in the JPEG dialog box) is about 250KB... which suggests a massive decrease in image quality.

You guys mention the resolution box near the top of the screen. if this indeed has something to do with it... what would I have to do? i.e. what kind of value should I change it to? It's currently at a value of 300...

Thanks again!

Alex

[Gaussian]

What are the pixel dimensions of the images you are working with, and what size are you cropping them to?

If you are taking a huge image and cropping it down to only a tiny portion then of course the file size is going to be smaller. File size is related to the dimensions of the image.

[Steve]

What are the pixel dimensions of the images you are working with, and what size are you cropping them to?

If you are taking a huge image and cropping it down to only a tiny portion then of course the file size is going to be smaller. File size is related to the dimensions of the image.

Exactly the question I was about to ask.
The size of the file is determined by the dimension in inches or pixels that have.
Duplicate something you've already tried.
Open a 4MB image and type Alt+Ctrl+I Windows, Alt+Option+I on iDad's computer (Mac) check out the settings.
Don't make any adjustments just close the Image Size box.
Crop (C) the image and re-open the image size duologue box, what are the settings?