What if your digital photo measures 5x7”, and you need a 2x2” square for your layout.  No problem!  It is very easy to crop an image to a specific size in Photoshop.  There are 2 quick methods to do this.

What you’ll need:

• Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0/ higher, or Photoshop 7.0 or higher

• Photograph in digital format

You’ll learn how to:

• Crop to a exact size

• Crop to an approximate size

Open Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.

Open your Photo.

Choose File > Open and browse your system for photo.

Click photo of choice and then choose Open.

Method 1: The Exact Method

Select the Crop tool from the toolbox. (Or press “C” on the keyboard).

On the Crop Options Bar, you’ll see the fields for Height and Width. 

Enter the size you want for the width, plus the unit of measurement (for example “in” for inches or “cm” for centimeters).  Now enter the size for the height in the same manner.  For example, 2x2”.

After you’ve entered these values, click in the upper left corner of your image, and drag out a cropping area.  You will notice that the selection area stays in a 2x2” proportion.  It doesn’t have to be exact, since Photoshop will crop the image to a perfect 2x2” size.

When the selection looks OK to you, press the ENTER key to finalize your cropping and the dark shaded area will disappear.

Now your image will measure exactly 2x2”.

Method 2: The Quick Method

Hit Ctrl + R to make the rulers visible on your image.  This photo measures 5x7”.

Select the Rectangular Marquis tool from the toolbox, (or press “m” on the keyboard).

3.   Using the rulers as a guide, click and drag a selection as close to 2x2” as you can.

4.      From the Image Menu, choose Crop.

Now the image is immediately cropped to your selection.  If it doesn’t measure exactly 2x2”, you can always use the Image>Image Size command to edit the dimensions.

It’s a good idea to save this image with a new name so you can always go back to the original. (File>Save As).