Rectangular Cropping

Easel allows you to crop images with 4 different shapes (rectangle, ellipse, burst, and freehand). Rectangular cropping, in which you designate a rectangular portion of the image, is the most conventional.

Step to take	Easel Response
1. Click image with right mouse button	Image menu appears
2. Left click Crop on image menu	Crop menu appears
3. Left click Rectangle on crop menu	Menus disappear, cursor changes to cropping symbol
4. Position the cursor at 1 corner of the desired crop area, then press and hold left button	Cropping begins
5. Drag mouse to define desired crop area	Dashed rectangle outlines area
6. Release left mouse button	Crop area defined (tentative)
7. Adjust crop area (if desired): move cursor over an edge or corner, hold down the left button, move mouse, then release the button	Crop area adjusts
8. Adjust crop location (if desired): same as adjusting crop area, but hold down Ctrl key.	Crop position adjusts
9. Click inside crop area to complete, or outside crop area to cancel	Crop complete or cancelled

Changing the crop of an image that is already rectangularly cropped takes almost identical steps, except that when Rectangle is clicked on the crop menu, Easel redraws the image in its entirety with the dashed rectangle showing the current crop. To change it, proceed as above at step #7 or 8.

Note 1: To modify an existing crop, you must select the same type of crop from the crop menu, where it will have a check next to it. If, instead, you select a different kind of crop, cropping will proceed as if it was a new crop, except that you will be limited to working within the previous crop area. To change from one type of crop to another while being able to access all parts of the original image, you must first uncrop it to remove the original crop.

Note 2: By default, Easel allows you to select any portion of an image as the crop area. However, you can also preset the aspect ratio of the cropping area to make it fit in a given area. See constrained cropping for more info.