Crop Tool Locking

[Andrew_Painter_99]

Hey,

I have Photoshop Elements 7 (yes, I know it's old).  I'm using it a lot these days and I often have a dozen files up at once in the Editor.  After working in the program for a while, I will go to crop something and find that the dimensions for the Crop Tool (height and width) are locked to the last measurements that I was using and can't be unlocked so I can change the measurements.  There doesn't seem to be a pattern to why or when this happens.  The only way to fix it seems to be to close everything I was working on, close the program, and reopen it and reopen all my files, which is a real hassle.  There seems to be a glitch with the software and I wondered if there was a patch or something to fix this.  It is super annoying and is really slowing my work down.  I have tried this on Windows Vista, 7, and 10 and always have the same problem.  My sister, who is also an Elements user, has Photoshop Elements 10 and has no problem at all.

Any advice would be very welcomed help me solve this.

[hatstead · Accepted solution]

On the crop tool's option bar where it says "Aspect Ratio" make sure that in the drop-down "No restriction" is selected.

If that does not fix it, click on the little triangle, top left, to reset the tool.

If the problem persists, suggest that you reset preferences to default. See here:

Photoshop Elements > Troubleshooting > Delete Preferences File

[Andrew_Painter_99]

I tried your first and second suggestions, but those didn't seem to make a difference.  I then reset the preferences to default as you advised and that seems to have done the trick!  I've waited a bit before replying here to make sure this fixed the problem.  Thanks so much!

[hatstead]

You're welcome. Glad to help.