To cut out or trim unneeded portions of an image or a page is to crop. Cutting lines, known as crop marks, may be indicated on a print-out of the image or page to show where to crop.
One basic way to modify images is to crop them — remove some part of the image. Cropping changes the appearance of photographs and clip art in order to better fit the layout, make a statement, or improve the overall appearance of the subject matter.The crop tool in some page layout software and graphics software allows you to do a simple rectangular crop or a more extensive cropping in a free-form manner (such as cropping irregular shapes or removing specific colors). When done in page layout software, cropping may not alter the actual image but simply prevent portions of the image from being visible and keep it from printing. The actual digital image is still intact. In graphics software, the image can be permanently cropped, deleting unwanted information from the digital file, if desired.
Printing crop marks on camera ready print-outs is an option in some page layout programs. Crop marks may not print if the page size and paper size are the same or if the crop marks fall outside the print zone of your desktop printer. These crop marks tell your printing service provider where to crop or trim the page so that elements outside the crop marks do not become part of your printed piece.
How to Crop
- How and Why to Crop Photos for Page Layout offers seven different ways (with photo examples) you might crop a photograph to improve its appearance, change its focus, and make it more interesting or useful.
- Using Clipping Paths to Crop Out Backgrounds is a series of articles and tutorials on using clipping paths to protect portions of an image while removing or cropping out unwanted elements.
