Cinematic crop?

[RichardMH]

What I'm trying to do is a cinematic crop (2.35:1) then put this inside a 16:9 document with black strips top and bottom. I can do this by doing the cinematic crop in Develop persona then resizing to 16:9 and black fill layer in Photo persona. What I can't do is do all this in Photo persona which would be more elegant. (My cropped image just expands to fill the 16:9). Is there a way?

[Old Bruce]

Those aspect ratios are are the same. 2.35:1 and 16:9 leave no space at the top and bottom. Try 1:1.5 and 1:2.35 or 1:1 and 1:2

[kirkt]

@RichardMH

 

The Crop tool, by default, preserves the pixel information that you crop away - that is why, after you crop in at 2.35:1 and then try to expand the crop area to 16:9, the pixels that would normally be revealed as a black letterbox just reappear.

1) crop to 2.35:1 using the crop tool with the preset (Crop tool > gear icon - cinematic ratios).  Reposition the crop area to get the composition you want.  Hit "Apply" to apply the crop.

2) right-click on the newly cropped layer in the layers panel and select "Rasterize and trim..." - this will commit the crop and actually remove the pixels from the image that are outside the crop border.

3) using the crop tool, select the 16:9 preset and drag the handles on the vertical edges of the crop area horizontally outward (NOT THE CORNER HANDLES!) - this will keep the crop area centered on the image and expand the area horizontally to the edge, also expanding the top and bottom to generate the letterbox area (assuming a landscape oriented image).

4) make a new pixel layer under the image and fill it with black to create the letterbox.

 

Try recording a macro to see if this process can be automated with a single click (you may have to rasterize and trim from the menus when recording the macro).

 

Kirk

[kirkt]

Here is a screencast of the process:

kirk

[RichardMH]

Perfect. Thank you.

[kirkt]

You’re welcome!

kirk