Crop Your Photos

Cropping allows you to select only the best part of a photo, and iPhoto makes cropping simple. By cropping a photo, you can make your photo more dramatic, or get closer to the subject in your photo.

iPhoto contains a list of many common crop settings that you may want to use to ensure your photos don’t get distorted when you need specific dimensions, like a 5" x 7" print or a postcard.

Tips

Move the crop window

Once you’ve selected an area to crop, you can move the crop area to capture exactly the part you want. Select the crop area, and then hold the mouse button down while you position the crop area. When you are done, click the Crop button to crop your image.

Restore photo to original

What if you don’t like the crop you just made to your photo? You can undo your last crop by selecting Undo from the Edit menu. This will restore your image to how it looked originally. Also, you can use the Revert to Original command under the Photos menu, but note this will undo all changes you’ve made to a photo, not just your cropping changes.

Print smaller after cropping

When you crop an image, you’re throwing away data, which makes your photo smaller. This might be exactly what you want, if you’re sending a cropped photo in email or posting it to a web page. But if you want to produce a high-quality print of your cropped photo, you may need to settle for a smaller version of that photo.

Duplicate a photo before cropping

When making changes to a photo, it’s a good idea to first duplicate the original, because the photo will be changed in your photo library, and in any albums that contain the photo. Making a duplicate also means that you’ll have a "before" and "after" version of the photo in your photo library. To do this, first select a photo to duplicate. Then, from the Photos menu, choose Duplicate, select the duplicate photo, and then type a new name for it in the Title field.

Switch to constrain as portrait or landscape

Depending on the dimensions of your photo, iPhoto will constrain the crop area with landscape or portrait settings. For example, if you have a group photo taken in landscape orientation, iPhoto will constrain the crop area with landscape settings. You can change the crop area orientation to portrait by selecting Constrain as portrait from the Constrain menu. Now when you select an item from the Constrain menu, your selection area will be in portrait orientation.

Steps

Crop a photo

In iPhoto, select a photo to crop from your photo library.
Click the Edit button below the photo viewing area.
Choose the dimensions for your photo from the Constrain pop-up menu. For example, if you plan to include the photo in a photo book, you can choose "4 x 3 (Book, DVD)." You can also choose None and select the crop area freely.
Notice how iPhoto shows you the area of the photo that will be cropped. If you don’t like the crop area, click outside the cropped area and then place the pointer where you want the cropped photo to begin.
To move the cropped area, place the pointer inside the cropped area and drag back and forth until it is positioned exactly where you want it.
Drag the pointer diagonally to select the crop area. Notice that if you’ve set a size constraint, you can select only the part of the photo that will fit in the size you specified.
When you are ready, click the Crop button, which is next to the Constrain pop-up menu.
When you’re done, you can save your changes by clicking the Done button.