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Clear
Press the "Clear"
button, or just click outside the marked clip region to clear the current clip rectangle.
Rule of Thirds
There's a photography guideline that helps the composition of many photographs called the "rule of
thirds". Put simply this involves placing key objects in your photos at thirds across your picture. For
example it's often better to position the horizon one third of the way down a picture rather than being
across the center. When you drag a clip region across your photos lines are displayed at thirds across
and down the image to help position objects to follow these composition guidelines.
Tip: Search
for "rule of thirds" on Google for more information.
Un-clip
Press the Un-clip
button with any clipped photo selected, to restore the original photo. This restores the clip rectangle,
which you can adjust or clear by clicking outside it.
The Un-clip button in the Clip Tool
will change the outline of any clipped photo, and also arbitrarily formed shapes with a bitmap fill, to that
rectangular outline of the complete photo or bitmap used as the fill. You may have to select the Clear
button to clear the crop rectangle (or click outside the rectangle).
Adjusting the clip region
Because the un-clip button restores the clip rectangle (showing the area outside faded), you can easily
make fine adjustments to a clipped photo. Just select the photo, press the Un-clip button and adjust the
sides of the clip rectangle as required. Double click inside the photo to clip it again.
Width / Height
After drawing a clip rectangle, you can enter values directly into the width and height fields on the
InfoBar to set the clip rectangle dimensions to exact values.
Lock Aspect
Select the "Lock aspect" check-box to constrain the clip rectangle to a specific aspect ratio as you
drag. The radio buttons to the right of the check-box determine the aspect ratio used. Select "Current"
to maintain the aspect ratio to that of the photo before the clip. Note that the clip rectangle automatically
changes between landscape and portrait orientation as you drag a corner of the rectangle. So if you drag
sideways it tends to create a clip in landscape orientation. If you drag downwards more, then it will
create a clip region in portrait orientation.
The common preset crop aspect ratios are available of 4:3 (most consumer digital cameras and old-style
TVs and monitors), 3:2 (that of traditional film cameras and higher end SLR digital cameras), and 16:9
(aspect ratio of widescreen TVs).
You can override the lock-aspect option by using "Ctrl" while dragging. So if you're dragging out a clip
rectangle (or adjusting one) without aspect ratio lock, then holding "Ctrl" will lock the aspect to the last
selected aspect ratio. Similarly if you have lock aspect option on then "Ctrl" will temporarily un-lock the
aspect ratio.
Clipping in Photo Documents
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