Unexpected Crop tool Behavior

[ajmast]

Latest PM5, Win 7 64b, PS CS5

When a crop is drawn in PM (on JPG) and then the image is opened in PhotoShop, the image opens in Camera RAW editor with the crop.
With no crop drawn it opens as normal in PhotoShop.

I honestly can't decide if I like the behavior or not. Sometimes I draw soft crops to Xmit for say a quick web gallery then open images to edit in PS for print and I may want a different crop then the hurried one I put on first time around. Plus When I save from PS this way I have to answer the file replacement dialog on each photo.

I have not seen this touted as a feature, so I thought I would check and see if is expected.

[Kirk Baker]

AJ,

Latest PM5, Win 7 64b, PS CS5

When a crop is drawn in PM (on JPG) and then the image is opened in PhotoShop, the image opens in Camera RAW editor with the crop.
With no crop drawn it opens as normal in PhotoShop.

I honestly can't decide if I like the behavior or not. Sometimes I draw soft crops to Xmit for say a quick web gallery then open images to edit in PS for print and I may want a different crop then the hurried one I put on first time around. Plus When I save from PS this way I have to answer the file replacement dialog on each photo.

I have not seen this touted as a feature, so I thought I would check and see if is expected.

The crops that PM 5 creates are using the same data structures as Adobe's software uses for crops.  We see no reason to create yet another 'standard' for crop information.

I don't understand why having a crop on a photo forces you to overwrite your original image any more than not having a crop on a photo would.  You can always do a Save As from Photoshop and choose a new name in either the cropped or un-cropped case.

As for the inconsistency in how Photoshop opens your JPEGs, you can force Photoshop to always open your JPEGs in the ACR plugin if you like.  That's the way I have my Photoshop set up.

-Kirk

[ajmast]

As stated, I am not sure if I like the it or not.

Primarily because if the soft crop is drawn it forces me to open the image with that crop in ACR and I may not want it.
On one or two images that is not biggie, on 100+ for a football game it might be.
And while I can remove the crop in ACR, it just adds a step which may or may not be required.

I don't see any advantage in my workflow to opening all JPG in ACR. Added unnecessary step.

I don't know if an option (universal or CTRL-E modifier) to open without crop would be an idea to think about or not worth the effort.

The Save; if I open uncropped-- tone, etc... then I just CTRL-S and ok 1 dialog and done.
If it goes through ACR then Save adds a name/location dialog, replacement confirmation dialog, then JPG compression dialog before saving.
So of course you can't do anything on the PS side of things, but going through ACR with a cropped photo adds two steps to saving each one. Again not a deal on 2-5 images, but it is a lot more interaction on 100+.

I can see the value of the behaviour as it is, I am just not sure it is the most efficient for every workflow.

(While I am thinking crop tool, and I think this has been mentioned, I would really like to see the crop shape info taken out of the "..." and put in the crop drop down on the preview pane. I may go from a proportional constrained crop to a free form crop photo by photo and it is an extra set of work to change and change back)

Best,
AJ

[Kirk Baker]

AJ,

As stated, I am not sure if I like the it or not.

Primarily because if the soft crop is drawn it forces me to open the image with that crop in ACR and I may not want it.
On one or two images that is not biggie, on 100+ for a football game it might be.
And while I can remove the crop in ACR, it just adds a step which may or may not be required.

I don't see any advantage in my workflow to opening all JPG in ACR. Added unnecessary step.

I don't know if an option (universal or CTRL-E modifier) to open without crop would be an idea to think about or not worth the effort.

PM would have to strip the crop info from the XMP metadata just before sending the file off to Photoshop.  This would work if the photo was on writable media but wouldn't work on read-only media.  If you did nothing to the photo and returned to PM, the crop would still be stripped--the change would be permanent.

The Save; if I open uncropped-- tone, etc... then I just CTRL-S and ok 1 dialog and done.
If it goes through ACR then Save adds a name/location dialog, replacement confirmation dialog, then JPG compression dialog before saving.
So of course you can't do anything on the PS side of things, but going through ACR with a cropped photo adds two steps to saving each one. Again not a deal on 2-5 images, but it is a lot more interaction on 100+.

I can see the value of the behaviour as it is, I am just not sure it is the most efficient for every workflow.

(While I am thinking crop tool, and I think this has been mentioned, I would really like to see the crop shape info taken out of the "..." and put in the crop drop down on the preview pane. I may go from a proportional constrained crop to a free form crop photo by photo and it is an extra set of work to change and change back)

Use snapshots.  Make snapshots for all of your favorite cropping ratios and one for an unconstrained crop.  Now clicking on the snapshot button and selecting a crop is at most two clicks to change your crop settings.

-Kirk