Geometry

Geometry controls image rotation, aspect transformation, and the nondestructive crop rectangle.

Controls

• Straighten rotates the photograph, up to 45° either way. Use the viewport tool to drag along a line that should be level, or turn it by hand with the crop tool's rotation ring.
• Aspect stretches the picture: negative values widen it and positive values heighten it. It is not the crop's ratio. To crop to 16:9, 3:2 or another ratio, choose Photo > Crop / Straighten and pick the ratio there (see Image viewport).
• Crop width and Crop height set the retained size.
• Crop left and Crop top position the retained rectangle.

Geometry starts off, and a photograph carries no geometry node until it is used: switching the section on or making the first crop or straighten drag in the viewport adds it. The viewport crop tool is the normal visual way to edit these values. Numeric rows are useful for matching crops or entering exact geometry. Pixels outside the crop are retained and can be restored.

Rotation ring

With the crop tool up, the crop wears a dashed ring about its center. Drag along the ring, or anywhere in the shaded area outside the crop, and the picture turns about the crop's center as the pointer goes round; the cursor is the rotate arrow wherever a drag will turn. The angle shows in the middle of the crop while you drag, and a level grid replaces the thirds so a horizon or an upright can be set against it.

• Hold Shift to land on whole degrees.
• Hold Option (Alt on Windows) for fine control: the picture turns a tenth as far as the pointer.
• Double-click the ring to put the picture level again.

The ring writes the same angle as the Straighten row, so the two always agree, and it stops at the same 45° either way; quarter turns stay with Rotate. A whole drag is one undo step. While you turn, the picture on screen turns with the pointer at once and its empty corners are approximate; your edits render at the new angle when you let go. With Stay inside picture on, the crop shrinks as you turn so no empty corner shows, and turning back gives back the crop you started with (see Crop to picture).

Crop ratios

The crop bar's menu, and Photo > Crop / Straighten > Crop to Aspect Ratio, hold the crop to a ratio while you drag it:

• Free and Original (the photograph's own shape).
• The common ratios: 1:1, 3:2, 4:3, 5:4, 16:9, and the upright 2:3, 3:4 and 9:16.
• The film crops, in a group of their own and named by their decimals, each the width for a height of 1: 1.85 (widescreen theatrical), 2.00, 2.35 and 2.39 (anamorphic scope: 2.39 is the current standard, 2.35 its traditional name), 2.40, 2.50 and 2.76 (ultra-wide 65 mm).
• Ratios you saved in the aspect ratio calculator, after a rule.

The swap button beside the menu turns the held ratio on its side: 2.39 becomes 1:2.39 for an upright crop, and 3:2 becomes 2:3. While a ratio is held its name shows in the crop's top-left corner (2.39, 16:9, or a saved ratio's name). A ratio of your own can also be typed as width and height, decimals included (2.39 and 1).

Crop to picture

Straightening turns the photograph inside its frame, which leaves empty corners where the turned picture no longer reaches. Stay inside picture keeps the crop clear of them, and it is on by default:

• When Straighten changes (the row, the drawn line or the crop tool's rotation ring), the crop shrinks so no empty corner shows, keeping its center and its ratio. A crop that already filled the picture follows it back out, so straightening and then returning to level gives the whole frame again. A smaller crop is left alone until the picture's edge reaches it.
• Dragging the crop or its corners outward stops at the picture's edge.

Turn it off with the Stay inside picture button on the crop bar (a frame with a smaller dashed frame inside it, lit while on) or with Stay inside on the Crop row at the foot of this section, and the crop stays wherever it is put. Flip and Rotate's quarter turns leave no empty corners and never change the crop. A document opens exactly as it was saved: the setting only acts on a new change of angle.

Crop to picture (the button on the crop bar showing an upright crop inside a turned picture, or To picture on the Crop row) sets the largest crop that is all picture at the current angle, centered, in the ratio the crop bar holds, or else in the crop's own ratio. It is one undo step, and grays when the crop already is that.

A crop's sides go no smaller than a twentieth of the frame, so a very long, thin ratio (far past the film crops, such as 30:1) may have no crop that is all picture at a steep angle. Then Stay inside picture leaves the crop as it is, a ratio chosen on the crop bar is set without the hold, and Crop to picture grays.

Flip

Flip (two buttons on the Flip row at the foot of the section: Flip Horizontal, a shape and its mirror across an upright dashed line, and Flip Vertical, across a level one) mirrors the photograph left for right or top for bottom, the same two switches as Photo > Flip Horizontal and Flip Vertical. A lit button is on; pressing it again puts the photograph back. Each press is one undo step. The same two buttons sit on the Crop & Rotate node in the graph inspector.

The edits flip with the photograph. A brush stroke, a selection, a radial or linear mask, a Smart selection's clicks, the crop's rectangle and angle, Grid Warp and Shape Warp, Depth Lighting's lamps and every Finish layer all stay on the subject they were made on, so the whole result is the old one mirrored: the export, the view at Fit and at 1:1, the histogram and the thumbnail. A picture placed in Finish mirrors with it (a baked warp's kept warp too, so Unbake lands on the mirrored subject), and directions follow: a Gradient layer's angle, a Shadow's or Bevel's light, a motion Blur, a Flare's rays and streak. Grain and the Fog's texture are made fresh where they land and are not mirrored. The flip is applied with the crop, to the photograph before it is turned, so a Smart selection's model and the depth map read the photograph as it is. A depth map computed after the crop is computed again on the flipped frame.

Rotate

Rotate (two buttons on the Rotate row under Flip: 90° Left and 90° Right, a picture on its side under an arrow turning that way) turns the photograph a quarter turn, the same as Photo > Rotate > 90° Left and 90° Right; Photo > Rotate > 180° turns it upside down. Use it for a portrait shot the camera recorded lying on its side, or a picture taken upside down. Each press is one undo step, and four presses the same way put the photograph back where it started.

The edits turn with the photograph, just as they flip with it: every mask, stroke, selection, the crop's rectangle and angle, the warps, Depth Lighting's lamps and every Finish layer stay on their subject, and a placed picture and the directions (a Gradient's angle, a Shadow's light, a motion Blur, a Flare) turn too. The crop's rectangle turns with the picture, so it frames the same part of the scene; an aspect ratio held in the crop bar reads the turned frame, so a 3:2 crop on a picture turned on its side is 3:2 across the new width. The turn is whole pixels, nothing resampled, and comes after Flip, so on a picture turned on its side Flip Horizontal still mirrors it left for right as you see it.

Paste Edits carries the flip and the turn with the crop, and Reset on this section puts the photograph back the right way round and upright. While the Crop & Rotate node is bypassed in the graph the buttons gray: switch it on first.

Following the crop

Anything painted or placed on the scene follows a change of crop, in the same undo step: masks, brush strokes, selections, Finish painting, Grid Warp, Shape Warp and the lamps of Depth Lighting stay on the content they were made on (see Painting and the crop). Switching Geometry off is a change of crop too.