# How to set a fixed ratio for cropping in Lightroom 4?



## rfe777 (Feb 15, 2013)

Hi everyone

I have a few pictures which I want to crop before printing, and I want to set the crop ratio equally in all of them. I know you could do that in Photoshop, but I couldn't find anything similar in Lightroom 4. I need to set the crop ratio to 2x3 as the printed pictures will be 20x30(20 wide x 30 long).
Also, as all the pictures are of a single object in the center of the picture, on a white background, I need it to be in exactly in the same distance from the upper and lower border of the picture: in other words, I need to set the crop to measure the distance of the object to be exactly the same from the upper and from the lower border, but couldn't find this option in Lightroom 4...

Anybody knows?

TIA


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## Allan Olesen (Feb 15, 2013)

I don't have access to Lightroom now, so my explanation is a little vague:

When you use the crop tool (for example by pressing "R" on the keyboard) you can see the crop ratio in a drop-down in the top of the side bar in the right side. Crop ratio 3:2 is one of the standard crop ratios on the list, so you don't even have to define a custom crop.

If you want to change the crop area from portrait to landscape orientation or vice versa, you just pull one corner with the mouse to "rotate" the crop rectangle.

Your second question you will probably have to explain more thoroughly. Do you want the edges of the crop area to perfectly touch something in the picture, or do you want a precise distance from the edges to something in the picture?


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## rfe777 (Feb 15, 2013)

Allan Olesen said:


> Your second question you will probably have to explain more thoroughly. Do you want the edges of the crop area to perfectly touch something in the picture, or do you want a precise distance from the edges to something in the picture?


A precise distance from the top and bottom edges to the object in the center of the picture.


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## Tony Jay (Feb 15, 2013)

rfe777 said:


> A precise distance from the top and bottom edges to the object in the center of the picture.



To the best of my knowledge there is no specific tool to achieve this in Lightroom ala Photoshop.

Tony Jay


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## rfe777 (Feb 15, 2013)

I've tried that in another program, but after cropping(almost all the area around the object in the center save for a little space around it) the pictures have shrunk from about 6mb to about 500kb. Dimensions have changed from 5184x3456 to ~4000x~2700(more or less). If I'll print these cropped pictures the prints will be very low in quality, no?


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## Hal P Anderson (Feb 15, 2013)

No. 4000/30 = about 133 pixels per inch, which will probably be OK when viewed from normal viewing distance. Lightroom is capable of increasing the number of pixels at export time, and you might want to experiment with that. 

Hal


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## rfe777 (Feb 15, 2013)

Hal P Anderson said:


> No. 4000/30 = about 133 pixels per inch, which will probably be OK when viewed from normal viewing distance. Lightroom is capable of increasing the number of pixels at export time, and you might want to experiment with that.
> 
> Hal


I just tried, and the exported pictures are between 14-20mb, one is even 23mb. Is this right(increase them x30-40 in size)???


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