How do I unconstrain my cropping tool?

If you create a new document the cropping tool get the sizes of that document, maybe you created a square document before??

In any way, using the clear/reset does get you the free cropping, hit front image (beside it) and the sizes of the image you work on are selected.

You can also make a bunch of presets (which I find very useful)

>This "clear" is "Reset Tool" in the tool presets dropdown menu in Photoshop CS2.

Nope, the "Clear" button is right there at the top in the Option Bar of the Crop Tool.

This "clear" is "Reset Tool" in the tool presets dropdown menu in Photoshop CS2. Thanks.

My second remains unanswered: how did this happen, did I inadvertently hit a shortcut key combination that constrains the cropping tool (and that shortcut is ... ; and it can be deactivated by ... ;)? Is this a factory preset that is re-invoked whenever I download an "upgrade"?

I'm just trying to learn about this software so that I can avoid some of these productivity-destroying distractions/detours in the future. This little bit of madness resulted in a four-day delay in getting proofs to somebody.

Thank you Buko. This was happening to me in CS3. Out of the blue?

use the clear button

Look at your settings for the aspect ratio (width x height) in the Options Bar.