The confusing crop tool - setting 900 x 900

[larry45]

I have never understood well the confusing crop interface.

I 'm trying to make a preset 900px x 900px

But it says px/ inch  which is it? px or inch?

And when I drag out, I still get a retaangle not a square!

ANd if I try to type px  in 2nd box, wont allow cursor in. Stumpe thanks.

[c.pfaffenbichler]

Could you please post complete screenshots with the pertinent Panels (Toolbar, Layers, Options Bar, …) visible? 

The 900px/in in your screenshot are the resolution, the width is not included in the screenshot. 

[D Fosse · Accepted solution]

It is a bit confusing.

First you need to set the rolldown to W x H x Resolution, not Ratio.

Then type in measurement units as px. You can set a ppi number in the third field, or you can leave it blank. Doesn't really matter.

The important thing here, what you need to consider, is that this will resample the crop! Are you absolutely sure that's what you want?

If you don't want to resample, just crop out 900 x 900 pixels from the existing image, you use the Rectangular Marquee set to "fixed size".

[larry45]

D Fosse thanks ok great, I got it!

I was using the last two boxes as W and H, not two first fields.  whew

You would think after 20 years PS would label those spot on...none are labeled at at all, none... , not 1st , 2nd or mystery 3rd. Wow

BTW,  res did not change, started at 300 and stayed at 300 on my new test.

[Conrad C]

There are labels, if you pause the pointer over the fields to see the tool tips…see the demo below.

The fields correspond to what you selected in the menu. For example, if you select W × H × Resolution, then you get three fields, which correspond to W, H, and resolution because that’s what you chose. Here, it might be nice if Adobe added “W” and “H” next to the fields like Photoshop has in other panels (resolution is already labeled by the “px/in” menu). Fortunately, as soon as you enter a dimension value, Photoshop labels it with the current ruler units (my example below shows that after I typed 35, Photoshop added the “px”). And as shown, if you right-click the field you can change the units at any time.

So those fields are not entirely unlabeled.

If you select Aspect Ratio, you get two fields, so naturally it’s the two dimensions of your ratio (W × H). A ratio has no unit of measure, so if Aspect Ratio is selected, no unit labels are needed next to the fields.

[larry45]

Conrad, excellent post; this will help cement this in my brain for years to come. thanks.

But, I'm not getting tool tips at all. I've been hovering my mouse over all those fields  right now, repeatedly, no yellow tips arrive, any idea?

[D Fosse]

Maybe you've turned them off in Preferences?

I used to do that, but then I found that sometimes tooltips can actually be useful. Even after 20 years, I don't know everything 🙂

[larry45]

Never looked but are both  checked, and still not working at all. so maybe bug with PS. I see threads where lot people have issues and the suggestions is always reset your preference, which not inclined to do oh well.  So more important this new info thanks.