P: Bug in “Constrain crop” – LR 4.1 RC

[Josabad]

Hello! Choose a non-cropped image. In the lens correction panel click “Manual”. Now put e.g. the vertical correction to -50 (just to illustrate the problem). Activate
“Constrain crop” in order to exclude the grey corners.
Now select the Crop Overlay tool. In the top, you see enough space where the crop could be shifted to. Try it. It won’t work (- unless you disactivate “Constrain crop” again). Yet, to my mind, an activated “Constrain crop” function should allow to move the crop freely within the new (= lens corrected) borders.

[Lee_Jay]

Works fine for me.

[Rikk-Flohr]

I confirm what Lee Jay says. It works as expected here on Snow Leopard and Windows 7. You aren't pulling the wrong direction by trying to move the crop tool instead of sliding the image underneath it, are you?

[LRuser24]

Sebadja, was the aspect ratio lock symbol closed by any chance? If this is the case, when you try to enlarge the crop rectangle upwards (drag the upper line up), it won't work because it would also have to be enlarged horizontally to keep the aspect ratio, and there is no room to allow that because of the -50 vertical correction and the activated "constrain crop".

P.S. The moment when "constrain crop" is activated, Lightroom always maintains the current aspect ratio of the crop rectangle (regardless of the aspect lock setting). It just moves/shrinks it in order to fit into the warped image area.

[Josabad]

No, I'm not pulling the wrong direction. I try to move the crop to the top by pulling the mouse down. The crop shivers, but does not move. (Win7 x64)

[Josabad]

Thank you for your comment.
The aspect ratio lock symbol ist closed indeed, but I did not try to enlarge the crop while it is on the bottom. I just want to move it to the top in order to include the upper part of the image. If I deactivate "contrain crop", it works: I can push the crop to the top, then I can even enlarge it a bit (by dragging the lower line down) and finally I can activate "constrain crop" again (if I'm not sure, whether I had enlarged it a bit too much). Doing so will result in a larger crop than the automatically generated one.

[LRuser24]

Ok, I misunderstood the first time. Now I tried again exactly in the same way as you said (hopefully):
1. Reset a photo to Adobe defaults
2. Apply manual vertical correction -50
3. Activate constrain crop
4. Enter crop tool ('R'), make sure that aspect ratio lock symbol is closed
[Now the crop rectangle is in the middle of the photo, touching the inclined left and right image borders with its lower left and right corners. There is free space above and below the crop rectangle, and the space above should be free to move the crop rectangle into.]
5. Hold the mouse button down inside the crop rectangle and drag the mouse *down*

Result (as expected): The crop rectangle moves up into the free space above.

I tried the same with the aspect ratio lock symbol *open*. No difference - works as expected.

Strange. Why does that not work for you? It may have to do with the aspect ratio and size of the whole original photo. I used a Canon CR2 with 3888 : 2592 (3 : 2). What kind of original photo did you use?

[Rikk-Flohr]

Mouse driver updated?

[LRuser24]

OK.... Now I can reproduce it!

Sebadja, did you use a photo that was in portrait orientation? Because when I do, or rotate a landscape photo to portrait before, I have exactly the same problem as you. When trying to drag the canvas down (to move the crop rectangle up), it strangly moves to wrong directions (even outside the warped area), but when releasing the mouse button, it moves back to its original location.

So... here is my slightly modified recipe (see above) to reproduce:
1. Load a raw in landscape aspect and original orientation into develop module
2. Rotate it clockwise so it becomes portrait (Menu Photo -> Rotate Right)
3. Reset to Adobe defaults
4. Apply manual vertical correction -50
5. Activate constrain crop
6. Enter crop tool ('R')
7. Hold the mouse button down inside the crop rectangle and drag the mouse *down*

Expected Result: Canvas moves down, so crop rectangle moves to free space above

Actual Result: Canvas does not move down while holding the mouse button, it only moves to the left if the mouse is dregged left (outside the warped area!), and returns to its original position when releasing the mouse button. There seems to be no way to move the crop rectangle using the mouse.

Edit: Moving the crop rectangle using the up/down/left/right keys seems to work, which may be a workaround for the time being.

Furthermore, the crop rectangle behaves competele erratic when trying to resize it (Edit: Or to rotate it). There is something fundamentally wrong in the crop logic when the image is rotated, a lens correction was applied and "constrain crop" is activated.

Additional analysis: This happens for any photo that is not in its "neutral" rotation position, including photos that have already been rotated by the *camera*, and including photos that have been flipped vertically or horizontally (try my recipe with "flip vertical" instead of "rotate right" in step 2, or use "flip horizontal" and use manual horizontal transformation). The contrain crop logic does not seem to take account the rotation/flipping when dragging or resizing the crop rectangle - you can move it into "not allowed" positions that would be allowed when the rotation/flipping would not have been applied before. However, when you release the mouse button in such an "illegal" position, it snaps back to its previous "legal" position.

Note: A photo already rotated in the camera (that "misbehaves") will behave correctly when using LR to rotate it back to it's "neutral" rotation position, i.e. as if the camera did *not* rotate it.

Oh, and one more thing: Lightroom 3.6 has *exactly* the same problem!

P.S. I use LR 4.1 RC 64 Bit and LR 3.6 64 Bit, Windows 7.

[Josabad]

Hello LRuser24,
the photo was in portrait orientation, indeed. But I realized the same problem in landscape orientation, too. Whether these photos were not in their "neutral" rotation position - I don't know. I'm going to test it.

And - yes, in Lightroom 3.6 I had the same problem.

The arrow-keys I did not try yet. Thank you for your analysis!

[Josabad]

Thanks to the analysis of LRuser24 I'm now able to secify the problem, which does not depend on the camera, I think. (I use a Nikon D7000.)

The bug, wery well discribed by LRuser24 above, affects not all images, but at least the following:

1.) photos in portrait aspect or photos that were rotated to portrait aspect - if transformed vertically or horizontally or by distorsion,
2.) photos that were rotated to landscape aspect - if transformed vertically or horizontally
3.) photos in landscape aspect that were flipped vertically - if transformed vertically,
4.) photos in landscape aspect that were flipped horizontally - if transformed horizontally.

The arrow-keys work, but the mouse does not.

[LRuser24]

Unfortunately the bug is still present in 4.1 RC2. IMHO this is a serious bug that needs to be fixed.

[Lee_Jay]

Sorry for not noticing your steps. I can reproduce the bug and have filed it.

[LRuser24]

Thanks. Just to clarify: Filing a bug is not something everybody can do, i.e. one needs special access to be able to do that, am I correct?

[Josabad]

I would like to know, what filing means. Reporting the bug to Adobe directly?

[LRuser24]

This bug is still there in the 4.1 final...

[LRuser24]

Well, the bug is still there in version 4.3 (Win7 64 bit), and I still think it is a rather serious one because it affects some of the basic image manipulations (rotating and cropping) when using perspective correction... or am I perhaps misjudging this?

[LRuser24]

Seems to be fixed now in 4.4 final.

Note: My "steps to reproduce" are no longer fully valid because "constrain crop" now seems to behave a little different: With manual perspecive correction, it now tries to fill out the whole image instead of "centering in" like before. So to get the same basis for testing, you have to make the crop rectangle a little bit smaller after activating "constrain crop".

Now in LR 4.4, the canvas can be correctly dragged, and the crop rectangle always stays inside the constrained area. Rotating and resizing the crop rectangle seems to work correctly, too.

There are still some quirks when dragging the canvas for a relatively large crop rectangle. When a corner of the crop rectangle hits the edge of the constrained area, it correctly stops there, but when dragging further, it sometimes jumps to the opposite side and back. However, that does not restrict the correct movement of the canvas and is only a minor nuisance.

Edit: Just noticed that this was also mentioned in the 4.4 readme - or at least a bug connected with it (first point in list).

[Josabad]

The disturbing problem has gone at last. Thank you, Adobe!

[Josabad]

Thank you, LRuser24, for your detailed researches and informations - they helped Adobe to solve my problem!