How can I crop a specified ratio of an image without resampling?

Question

I am cropping images provided by a photographer for a client down to 1200x1200@ 72. I want to crop a native ratio of 1200x1200 from the oversized images so that there is not enlargement or reduction of the original image.

When I use the crop tool and set it to 1200x1200 @ 72 it gives me a preview of the crop at the full size of the artboard. i.e. 4000x4000, expecting me to hit ok and resample to the new size. What i need is a preview on screen of where my native 1200x1200 cropping portion would be of the image.

I can drag the handles down and in the lower right corner will tell me the size of my crop, but it is extremely hard to use the mouse and get it to exactly 1200x1200. There is no place in properties to specify a set crop area while keeping the resolution native.

Can anyone provide a solution other than having to change my canvas size to 1200x1200 and then use the crop tool to re-center my selection?

Conrad_C · Answer

There are many ways to crop other than using the Crop tool. For this problem, it might be best to use the Rectangular Marquee selection tool instead. Set it to Fixed Size 1200px x 1200px in the options bar, and you will get a 1200px by 1200px selection square to drag around the image. Because Fixed Size locks the selection area to those pixel dimensions, there will be no resampling.

When you get the right selection, choose Image > Crop.

The reason the Crop tool is resampling is because you entered a ppi resolution (72). If you don’t want the Crop tool to resample, the resolution field must be blank. Entering a ppi value means you want the Crop tool to force the selected area to resample to the ppi value.

But that doesn’t solve the problem of being unable to lock the Crop tool to select specific pixel dimensions, because the Crop tool options only specify what you want the result to be, not what you want the selection to be. To specify the selection, we turn to the Rectangular Marquee tool and use its non-resampling Fixed Size option.

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