Usually, you only use the cropping feature for reducing the physical size of an image by cutting away areas around the borders. But, do you know that crop can do much more than reducing the size of an image? Yes it is, in Adobe Photoshop Cs 4, you can also use the crop tools to expand your canvas. You can also quickly create a new colour background for a photo and give your photo or image a wider border.

Maybe you are thinking, why don’t I use the canvas size menu and dialog box since it is more precise? Here is the answer. Using the crop tools to expand the canvas size is quick and you can see exactly how your enlarged canvas appears. Not only that, if you are using the reverse crop method, you can even create a border that is uneven, larger on one side than the other for a page layout. You can also make a border that is larger on the bottom than on the top as in a gallery print.

Now you can use this technique to enlarge your canvas visually or with precise dimensions for your final image. However, if you are working on a series of images with specific sizes, you can also create a custom crop tool preset and then use the tool to quickly reverse crop the photos. If you are doing that, all your images have the same sized canvas and make your design and layout task much easier. Here is how to use reverse crop.

1.    Open the image. Click the default colour in the toolbox.

2.    Click the zoom tool.

3.    Click the zoom out box in the option bar.

4.    Click in the image several times to zoom out. The image view will become smaller on a grey background area.

5.    Click the crop tool. Click and drag across the entire image. Make sure the crop marquee surrounds the whole image.

6.    Click and drag on the corner anchor points of the crop marquee to extend the crop area.

7.    Click and drag on the centre anchor points until the borders fit your design.

8.    Click the commit button in the options bar to commit the crop.

9.    After that, the canvas is enlarged and filled with the default background colour.

However, you can be more creative. Try using different background colours so that you can make a sweet greeting card with this technique.
M.A.H.

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