How to crop an image in Photoshop

Knowing how to crop an image in Photoshop is an essential skill that every budding designer needs to learn. Different to resizing, cropping an image includes removing some of the detail from the canvas rather than just changing the canvas size itself.

For example, let's say you've taken a team photo at work but the photographer was positioned too far away, and you've ended up with loads of empty desks in the background. Using the Crop tool, you can easily remove all that unwanted background action by cropping it out, leaving just you and your colleagues as the focus of the picture.

Just watch the video, or read our easy-to-follow instructions, to get started.

1. Open the image you'd like to crop. Either launch Photoshop and select File > Open… or find the file directly on your computer, right click and select Open with > Adobe Photoshop.

2. On the toolbar, select the Crop Tool. 

3. If you'd like to maintain the image's original ratio (for example 6:4), either click Ratio on the control bar and choose Original Ratio from the drop-down menu or hold down shift when you make your adjustments.

4. However, if you'd like to choose a new ratio (such as 5:7 or 16:9), you can also select this from the dropdown menu. 

5. To scale around the centre of the image, hold down alt.

6. Hold down shift and alt to scale around the centre proportionally. 

7. Once you're happy, press enter and save the new image.