When is best time to crop?

[Isaac Grant]

Wondering when people crop their images and why? Crop before you convert to TIFF and import into PS? or import full size shot into PS and then crop in PS?

Which is best and why?

If crop in PS when do you crop? Before all adjustments? When adjustments are done and before NR and sharpening?

[Stuart Edwards]

I have found it a lot easier to find a uniform area to create a noise profile for Neat noise reduction if I wait till the end to crop. Also once I am happy with my adjustments I save the tiff before cropping then apply any sharpening i need. That way I can easily change the crop without having to try and start over from scratch.

[Rachel Hollander]

Isaac - I also crop at the end of my workflow but before any sharpening. I too keep the uncropped tiff and the cropped tiff so that I can revisit the crop if I want. As to the why I crop, it varies. Sometimes it's to straighten a horizon or line, sometimes for comp, sometimes to remove something near the edge. One thing I do not do is pixel bash by cropping too much and affecting IQ of the image.

[Isaac Grant]

I sometimes crop as the first thing I do in PS and sometimes at the end as the last step before noise reduction and sharpening. Have not found that it makes a difference. Really I would like to know if there is an advantage to cropping an image in the RAW converter first and then importing that image into PS? I never do it that way but would love to hear if there are any benefits to doing that. A clear con would be that you could not loosen it in PS if you cropped the RAW.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I never crop during raw conversion, but once in PS I tend to crop first thing. No reason other than by habit. I never crop to get the subject bigger in the frame, simply to to help the composition, especially with action, therefore I do not see any evident IQ issues. NR and sharpening are always the last steps for me, too.

[Don Lacy]

I usually keep a master file with all the layers that is not cropped this gives me the freedom to revisit it for a different interpretation later now there are some images that the crop is obvious the only way to present it and I will save a cropped version as the master file.

[arash_hazeghi]

I crop at the end before saving the output, I never crop the master PSD file, this way I can always go back and change the crop if needed as opposed to having to go through the whole process again

[Isaac Grant]

Thanks for the feedback. Didn't think there was any reason to crop the raw file but always interesting to see what others do.

[Doug Brown]

Cropping is one of the last things I do to TIFF files. Working with the full image gives me more BG to clone if I feel the need to. I don't find it necessary to save a cropped and uncropped TIFF file. Just uncheck the Delete Cropped Pixels checkbox in PS when cropping. Then your crop will be saved but so will all the cropped pixels. If you decide to recrop, just go to the Image menu and select Reveal All.