I lost a lot of 'Constrain to Image' settings. How to apply it to several photo?

[.Michael.]

Hello,

I have seen in some older photo-folders that my photo-crop selection is still present but the check box 'Constrain to Image' (Develop Module) is gone. No idea how this could happen. The LrC (14.0.1) included utility 'Copy Settings' has a 'Crop' section with two related check boxes but a 'Constrain to Image' check box is missing. Is there some other option to automatically apply this setting to several photos?

Thanks!

Michael

P.S. If there is no option to do so, please introduce one.

[richardplondon]

Constrain to Image is not optional for the Develop crop - you cannot adjust a crop boundary beyond the original image extents in any case. You may be thinking of this as an optional setting controlling tools in the Transform panel - since as a result of perspective or geometric transformations of the image (especially scaling) the picture information extent seen becomes decoupled from the original image extents, such that extraneous areas may be artifically brought to show not only within the original image extents, but also within the current main crop boundary.

A checkbox is presented in Transform as to whether (when this happens) such white extraneous areas should be allowed to show, or should get further trimmed away on the fly.

I would expect this setting to be sync-able between images (its checked, or unchecked state) along with the other Transform panel adjustments. Separately from the main Develop crop, IOW.

[John R Ellis]

Normally, Constrain To Crop doesn't have any use with the Crop Tool, since you can't extend crops past the image boundaries. But in some circumstances, it does have an effect.

For example, Photo Merge > Panorama can produce images with ragged edges, and Crop > Constrain To Crop forces the crop to fit within those boundaries: 

The Lightroom Queen's Missing FAQ also says:

"...there’s a Constrain to Image checkbox in the Crop Options panel. It prevents you from including blank white pixels in your crop, which may be caused by lens corrections."

However, I've never observed lens corrections (or the lack of them) create non-rectangular boundaries in the same way that Photo Merge does.

[John R Ellis · Accepted solution]

"I have seen in some older photo-folders that my photo-crop selection is still present but the check box 'Constrain to Image' (Develop Module) is gone. No idea how this could happen."

Does it matter to the appearance of the images whether you check the box or not?  As I explained above, Constrain To Image only affects crops of Photo Merge > Panoramas and (maybe) with some very few lens corrections.

Regardless, you can enable Constrain To Image on a batch of images:

1. Select all the desired images.

2. Go to Develop.

3. In the bottom right corner, click the toggle on the Sync button to enable Auto Sync.

4. Check the Constrain To Image box.

5. IMPORTANT: Toggle Auto Sync off.

[.Michael.]

Thanks a lot, this works.

I need it for my HDR images, for my panorama images and in the Transform tool for a lot of perpective corrections. At Transform it is named 'Constrain Crop' but is 100 % the same as 'Constrain to Image'. My workflow is therefore: Enable the feature at the 1st working step = crop.

Michael