Participating Frequently

Question

Camera Raw Crop Tool Changes

Forum|Forum|4 months ago
April 23, 2026
18 replies
163 views

Please can someone explain the changes to the crop tool in Camera Raw (18.3)?

When using the gemoetry options I cannot crop to the edge of the image no matter what I do - this was no problem before. When the crop area is maximised, the crop tool no longer drags the cropped area, it only draws a new area to crop.

This is incredibly frustrating. Please can someone tell me how to get the legacy crop tool back? This wasn’t included in any “What’s New” content I have seen.

J

JP#Creative

Participant

I’m having the same issue and what wasn’t pointed is that not only is the constrain crop tool moved and pretty obscure location and recognition wise (makes no sense where they moved it) but it’s basically a completely different tool.You used to be able to just check that box and it would automatically lock the frame to the visible parts of the image (ie - so that empty pixels won’t be included in the crop)...it no longer functions like this and I have to mess with it every image after making geometry corrections.

I don’t want to use AI expand and I don’t want auto...I just want the crop tool back as it was/has functioned forever the way it used to in Bridge/ACR..why would Adobe change and move such a vital tool? There’s no reason for this and it is creating endless frustration with an editing process that used to be simple.

Erik Bloodaxe

Legend

Erik Bloodaxe

Legend

You may like to read this thread:

oiugoiug

Participating Frequently

When I’m cropping in ACR, the ‘fit to window’ option ceases to be sustained as I change the crop. Since the last couple of releases I now have to manually use Cmd-0 to force the crop to fill the available window. This has slowed my workflow down. Please fix it so that the ‘fit to window’ option is the default, and remains the default as I change the crop.

B

brucec6773371

Known Participant

Ahh - ok all, I have found the solution. The CONSTRAIN function IS there. It’s much harder to find, and I’m not sure it’s syncable yet (will test) but it is right at the top, next to the ‘undo’ button in the crop and expand portion - wow - quite a change, but thankful it’s there. THANK YOU ADOBE

B

brucec6773371

Known Participant

yes, it is syncable, at least in images that leave blank space. Still testing

M

Matthew22620886695lAuthor

Participating Frequently

It doesn’t appear ‘on’ for me to sync this. It’s not the same tool really - I don’t know why they’ve changed it to something worse?

B

brucec6773371

Known Participant

Yes, where has the contstrain crop tool gone! This is a real issue for those of us working full time in this space. I’m having to downgrade. Crazy

sullivan1985

Participant

I am dealing with this too and haven’t found any kind of solution to crop to the edges of the frame after using. using “Enable Expand” will let you go to the edge but that’s really annoying. Something changed and its frustrating.

Conrad_C

Community Expert

In case I’m misunderstanding the problem...on your computer, is Camera Raw not able to do what’s shown in the demo below? Or is it something else?

sullivan1985

Participant

If you use any of the geometry correction tools you can not drag the framer all the way to the edge even if there is room to do so as you could do in previous verions.

Conrad_C

Community Expert

But in the demo I posted above, at one point I enable Auto geometry correction, and when I pull the handle on the crop rectangle, you can see the bottom of the crop rectangle hit the bottom edge of the image. So you’re saying that isn’t happening on your computer? (I’m not denying that it happens, I’m wondering if I’m either misunderstanding the problem of if it’s configuration-specific.)

Does it make any difference if Constrain Crop is enabled or disabled?

Erik Bloodaxe

Legend

...and what does it look like now?

Some changes and additional features but, as far as I can see, the function of the crop tool is the same as the previous version.

This is version 18.3.0.2528:

M

Matthew22620886695lAuthor

Participating Frequently

Yes - it looks like that, but as I say, using the geometry options now change the function of the clicking and dragging the image, with no option to move the image 😓

I think what’s happened is that the full transformed image is now shown around the cropped area, whereas previously it was just cropped to the visible image within the original/selected ratio. Just an odd change that I guess I’ll have to get used to, but it is odd it won’t crop to the edge of the transformed image...