Inspiring

P: Crop orientation is reversed when drawing a new crop on portrait images

Forum|Forum|11 months ago
November 2, 2025
16 replies
307 views

Hi,

after the latest update to v15 of LR for Windows, the behaviour of the cropping tool changed. It's really annoying:

It is very difficult to create a selection in portrait format with the mouse in this case. Simply dragging diagonally downwards is no longer sufficient – see my screen video here:

https://youtu.be/NYfgYOV3IXE

Any idea to get back the old behaviour – not by using the previous version of LR 😉

Thanks!

mycc

Windows

johnrellis

Legend

Moderators, @Sameer K, please merge with this bug report:

https://community.adobe.com/questions-675/cropping-by-mouse-problem-with-orientation-back-to-old-behaviour-983920?postid=7778743#post7778743

johnrellis

Legend

[View this post in your web browser. It contains formatting and images that don't appear in email.]

I just submitted a precise bug report about this misbehavior, which started in LR 15.0 / Windows and LR 13.0 / Mac:

https://community.adobe.com/questions-675/cropping-by-mouse-problem-with-orientation-back-to-old-behaviour-983920?postid=7778743#post7778743

See the end of that post for a workaround that should let high-volume users crop portraits quicker while waiting for Adobe to fix the bug.

johnrellis

Legend

Moderators, @Sameer K, @nik.m, please move to Bugs. I’ve given a precise description of the bug in my previous reply in this thread.

johnrellis

Legend

[View this post in your web browser. It contains formatting and images that don't appear in email.]

Normally when dragging out a crop, if the cursor is above the 45-degree diagonal from the starting point, the crop is landscape:

and if the cursor is below the 45-degree diagonal, the crop is portrait:

But starting in LR 15.0 / Windows and LR 13.0 / Mac, if the original photo is portrait, then the behavior is reversed, which is a bug. When the cursor is above the 45-degree diagonal, the crop is portrait:

and when the cursor is below the 45-degree diagonal the crop is landscape:

However, if you set Aspect to the built-in aspect ratio matching the dimensions of the photo, the bug does not occur (e.g. Aspect: 2 x 3 for the photo above).

See the attached screen recording “demo.mp4” showing the correct behavior with a lanscape photo, the incorrect behavior with a portrait photo, and the correct behavior with a portrait photo and Aspect: 2 x 3.

For those doing high-volume cropping (e.g. school portraits), while waiting for Adobe to fix this, train your hand to move the cursor above the 45-degree diagonal rather than below, as seen in the second attached screen recording “workaround.mp4”.

demo.mp4

workaround.mp4

Nick-13

Known Participant

Totally agree

The behaviour of the crop box in LrC is counter intuitive and counter productive in relation to the previous format. This has challenged me, and my massive workflow, for quite some time now, as I encountered the change over a year ago and have struggled ever since

I cannot understand where any improvement is, and why this change was made

If Adobe don’t see the need change the crop box dragging procedure to the previous format, then at least offer users the option to use either the current or previous (legacy) formats, as a setting choice

I do very much hope this will take place, and restore workflow efficiency

Thank you

Dolliteon

Participating Frequently

Exactly. I used to be able to crop around 15 photos per minute, but since this issue started, I can barely manage 8–10 per minute. It is adding a significant amount of extra time to my workflow, especially because the majority of the school photos I work with are in portrait orientation.

For high-volume work, this makes a huge difference. I process large batches of school photos, so even a few extra seconds per image quickly adds up.

I really hope this issue can be investigated and fixed. There is a similar thread about this problem, but unfortunately it no longer seems to be getting any attention. Hopefully someone from the Adobe team can pick this up and look into it.

Dolliteon

Participating Frequently

Since updating to Lightroom Classic 15, the behavior of the Crop tool when drawing a new crop box with the mouse has changed.

I am a high-volume photographer and process around 50,000 photos per year, often in batches of 1,000–3,000 images. For many years, my workflow has been to press R and immediately draw a completely new crop box with the mouse. I do not resize the existing crop by dragging its corners.

Previously, when working on a portrait image with a locked aspect ratio (for example 2:3 / As Shot), I could simply start dragging a tall, narrow rectangle and Lightroom would immediately recognize that I wanted a portrait-oriented crop.

Now, when I start drawing a new crop box, Lightroom keeps the crop in landscape orientation. It only switches to portrait orientation after I drag the mouse a very long distance vertically. In many cases I have to drag almost to the bottom edge of my screen before it finally switches from landscape to portrait. When the area I want to crop is relatively small, there is simply not enough room to make Lightroom switch orientation.

I know that pressing X changes the crop orientation, but that is not a suitable workaround. Pressing X immediately creates/rotates the existing crop box, while my workflow is to draw a new crop box directly with the mouse. Having to draw the crop and then press X for every single image would also add an extra action to thousands of photos.

This behavior did not occur in previous versions of Lightroom Classic. I used this exact workflow for many years without any problem.

I have already reset the Lightroom preferences at startup, but this did not change the behavior. I have also tried explicitly selecting a 2:3 aspect ratio, changing its orientation and then moving to the next image, but the problem returns.

The main issue seems to be the threshold at which Lightroom decides whether a newly drawn crop should be landscape or portrait. That threshold now requires far too much vertical mouse movement.

Could Adobe please restore the previous crop-drawing behavior, or provide an option to control this orientation-switching threshold? For high-volume photography workflows, being able to draw a new portrait 2:3 crop immediately with one mouse movement is essential.

Dolliteon

Participating Frequently

i'm using 15.6 now and the problem is solved, i guess. Do you have the same experience?

Dolliteon

Participating Frequently

Oh, correction: the cropping behavior is only affected when working with a photo in portrait orientation. For a moment I thought the issue had been resolved, but it is still present when working in landscape mode.

Dolliteon

Participating Frequently

Hi!

This problem drives me crazy! Is there a solution for it?

nik.m

Community Manager

Hi @Dolliteon, thanks for reaching out, and we’re sorry about the trouble.

Please go to the Help menu in Lightroom Classic, then System Info, and copy the text. You can share the info with us by either pasting it as a reply here or in a text file and sharing the file with us.

It would also be helpful if you could share a video of the issue.

Thanks,

Nikunj

Bob Somrak

Legend

@my cc

I agree that using the Aspect tool when croppin a vertical image is messed up. I works on on a horizontal image if you hit "X" before using the tool.

M4 Pro Mac Mini. 48GB

M

my ccAuthor

Inspiring

Tipp from Copilot:

Wenn du präzise arbeiten möchtest, kann es helfen, das Seitenverhältnis explizit zu setzen (z. B. 2:3 oder 4:5) und dann mit der „X“-Taste zwischen Hoch- und Querformat zu wechseln.

→ if I explicitly set up the proportion from "Original" (2:3!) to 2:3, the cropping tools works as before and as in all other programs. But what is the idea behind it? I can't find any... 😞

dj_paige

Legend

But what is the idea behind it? I can't find any...

It's a bug. There is no "idea" here. Perhaps you should report it as a bug, following these instructions: https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-how-do-i-write-a-bug-report/idi-p/12386373

dj_paige

Legend

The first thing I would check is the mouse driver, try replacing it with a new copy of the most current version of the driver.

M

my ccAuthor

Inspiring

No, it's not a driver problem! I use a mouse AND a graphic tablet – with no differences when drawing the crop rectangle.

As you can see in the screen video: Within a portrait-format photo, I cannot simply draw/create the cropping rectangle by dragging it diagonally to the bottom right — as I am used to doing in Lightroom and other programs in general.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.