A person is working on a laptop with an image of the eiffel tower.
A person is working on a laptop with an image of the eiffel tower.

Image editing: Photoshop explainer 2 of 5

Let's open, rotate and crop an image using Photoshop

Posted by By pixel perfect 6 Min Read March 26, 2024

All our image editing explainers are waffle-free and work-tested. That’s the pixels.cool guarantee!

Open an image, rotate it and crop it

Overview

Name of explainer: Open an image, rotate it and crop it

Creative theme: Image editing

Software used: Photoshop

User level: BEGINNER

This is explainer 2 of 5 in this series

This series includes:

  1. Open an image, resize it and save it
  2. Open an image, rotate it and crop it
  3. Open an image and apply basic colour correction
  4. Open an image and add text
  5. Create a new image with a single-colour background

The Software

This series of beginner explainers uses Photoshop. Note Photoshop forms part of the ‘Photography plan’ AND the full ‘Creative Cloud all apps’ plan – Check carefully which subscription will be appropriate for you before committing to a paid subscription.

A screenshot of the photoshop website with a cat on it.
A screenshot of the photoshop website with a cat on it.

This month we’re also running explainer series for PaintShop Pro (which requires a single payment) and GIMP (which is completely free).

The pre-requisities

This is a BEGINNER workflow explainer, so you just need to install and open the software. We’ll take it from there.

If you’re new to IT / computing, you may need help downloading and installing the software. Start with a search for ‘how do i install photoshop’ or speak with someone who’s familiar with downloading and installing.

Why would I do this?

Being able to rotate images is an essential basic skill. Images may need to be re-orientated (E.g. Requiring a 90 degree rotation from landscape to portrait) or rotated by just a few degrees (E.g. To straighten an horizon).

It’s also important to be able to CROP your images, which means ‘trimming away’ parts you don’t want to include and ensuring the shape of the updated image is suitable for where it will be displayed or uploaded to. (E.g. For printing on photo paper, using in an online presentation or uploading to socials). This shape is commonly refered to an ‘image aspect ratio’. Common aspect ratios include:

1:1 Aspect Ratio (Often used for portrait thumbnails, and suitable for general use.)

Beautiful african american woman smiling on the beach.
Beautiful african american woman smiling on the beach.

16:9 Aspect Ratio (Often used if an image will be used in a traditional widescreen video)

A group of smiling friends on a yellow background.
A group of smiling friends on a yellow background.

9:16 Aspect Ratio (Often used if an image will be used in ‘vertical video’ on social / mobile media)

A woman in a red jacket standing next to a pine tree.
A woman in a red jacket standing next to a pine tree.

7:5 Aspect Ratio (A common ratio for printing photos)

A clown with blue and red hair is smiling.
A clown with blue and red hair is smiling.

6:4 Aspect Ratio (A common ratio for printing photos)

A thatched cottage with a red door at sunset.
A thatched cottage with a red door at sunset.

Let’s do it!

You can download the image used in this explainer from the section further down the page.

Click the play icon to watch this video. Subtitles are available – Click the settings cog at the bottom right for options. You can also watch this video full-screen by clicking the full-screen icon at the bottom right.

Good to know

The image we’ve opened and saved is in JPEG (or jpg) format. This is the most common file format for photos. If you have a modern mobile phone or traditional digital camera you may also be able to save photos in a RAW format, and HEIF is also becoming more popular. For guaranteed compatibility with almost all software it’s best to use JPEG.

Where to next?

Remember, this is part of a series of explainers for this software – Join us again for the other explainers in the series 🙂

Download the image used in this explainer

You’re welcome to download this image for your own personal use:

lacock_abbeyDownload

Notes and updates

There are no notes or advisories at this time. This video explainer was last updated in February 2023. This page was last updated in March 2024.

We at pixels.cool are not responsible for the content of any external webpages or software downloaded from third party sites. Links are included in good faith at the time of writing. All explainer content is compiled in good faith using processes and methods used by the team. Modern software gives users many ways in which to accomplish the same task, and for reasons of clarity we choose not to reference multiple options. All computer users should run up to date virus / security software at all times to minimise risk.

This is number 12 of the 15 explainer videos made available during image editing month! Make sure you check out the others!