Cropping

Cropping an image is pretty straightforward, but it can be essential to getting an aesthetically pleasing image.  There are a number of reason to crop a picture:  to remove an unwanted object from the image (say, a satellite), to remove edges of the image where combined exposures overlap, and to cut out extraneous sky around a smaller object.

Below is an RGB image in which the individual frames overlap at the edges.  The result is a colorful border rather than black sky out to the edges.

Select the Crop Tool from the toolbar (keyboard shortcut C)

Click and drag a box around the part of the image you want to keep.

Click the checkmark in the Crop toolbar at the top of the screen.  The resulting image:

Tip:  If you have overlapping images, especially if there are perfectly black strips around the image, crop the edges off before using the Levels adjustments as these areas will affect the histogram displayed by Levels.

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