How can I make precise edge crops in Lightroom Classic for artwork?
Asked 12/2/2021
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2 answers
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I’m cropping photos of paintings in Lightroom Classic and need the crop to line up exactly with the artwork edges. It’s difficult to do accurately because I don’t see a way to zoom in while the Crop tool is active. Is there a good Lightroom workflow for leveling and cropping artwork precisely? I’ve also heard a second monitor can help—how does that work? If Lightroom isn’t ideal for this, should I round-trip the files to Photoshop, and what’s the best way to do that?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
4y ago
2 Answers
2
If you are using a two monitor setup, you can open up a secondary display (F11). You can zoom the secondary monitor to 1:1 (Ctrl+Shift+=, or, Window -> Secondary Display -> Zoom In). This technique is will be frustrating as it takes the secondary monitor display a few seconds to update.
If you need to zoom in while cropping and leveling, export the image to Photoshop (Ctrl+E, or, Photo -> Edit In -> Edit in Adobe Photoshop) or another image editing program like GIMP (Ctrl+Alt+E) where you can zoom in to set your crop edge precisely. If using Photoshop, then going back & forth from LR to PS is painless, although, you'll end up with another copy of your edited image.
Be sure to take advantage of LR's Lens Corrections and Transform before cropping. The transform function can correct for keystoning and auto level your image if you have straight edges (frame edges).
Originally by user98537. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user98537
4y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Lightroom Classic is limited for pixel-precise cropping while the Crop tool is active. You do have two workable options:
- Use a second display in Lightroom
- Open the Secondary Display (F11).
- Zoom that display to 1:1 using Ctrl+Shift+= or Window > Secondary Display > Zoom In.
- This can help you judge the crop more closely, though updates may lag and feel frustrating.
- Round-trip to Photoshop (best for exact edge work)
- In Lightroom, choose Photo > Edit In > Edit in Adobe Photoshop (Ctrl+E).
- In Photoshop you can zoom in while cropping and straightening very precisely.
- Save the file, and Lightroom will automatically keep the edited version in your catalog. The tradeoff is that you’ll have an additional edited copy.
Before cropping, use Lightroom’s Lens Corrections and Transform tools to correct distortion and alignment; that makes edge cropping easier and more accurate.
So: for quick work, try the secondary display. For truly exact artwork edges, Photoshop is the better tool.
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