Crop Tool Bug

[Howard]

Hello

I use PE 2023 and find that about 50% of the time that I use the crop tool, the first time I click the tick/OK icon, it fails to crop and nothing changes.
Second time I do it, it works fine.

Although not the end of the world, it is frustrating if I've spent time carefully positioning the crop square, only for not to crop and having to repeat it.

My searches in Adobe support have been in vain and I wonder if anyone else experiences this or if it's a known bug.

In my previous version, 17, cropping often failed first time with the message "Cannot complete the action due to a system error", so it appears there is something odd going on.

And is it just me, or are the default cropping sizes in PE very limited?  It's surprising that there are not standard A4, A5, A3 sizes, given that most photo papers now come in those sizes, as well as traditional 10X8/6X4/7X5.
I appreciate that in the US, international A system is not used, but it is an international product. Alternatively,  the ability to save custom sizes.

Thanks
Howard

[Sepiana]

Mar 11, 2023 5:39:58 GMT Howard said:

I use PE 2023 and find that about 50% of the time that I use the crop tool, the first time I click the tick/OK icon, it fails to crop and nothing changes.
Second time I do it, it works fine.
I wonder if anyone else experiences this or if it's a known bug.

Hi Howard, welcome to PSE&M!

I have PSE 2023 installed on two computers (running on Windows 10 and Windows 11). I have not encountered the problem with the Crop tool you describe.

Will you please give us some more information? Your answers to these questions will help with the direction of the troubleshooting.

- Are you on Windows? Or are you on a Mac?
- Has this problem been there since you installed PSE 2023? Or is it a new development?
- Does your machine meet the minimum requirements for PSE 2023? See . . . System requirements.

[Howard]

Thanks for the welcome, Sepiana!

I'm on Win 10 Pro 64 bit version is 22H2 and it meets all the requirements.
It's a decent machine with, HP Spectre, 8GB RAM, i7 chip.

Yes, it happened for the first time shortly after I upgraded to 2023. At first I doubted myself and thought I hit cancel by mistake, but soon realised it wasn't my fault after it kept happening.

As I say, it's hardly the worst thing in the world and I can live with it, but was just interested to see if I was unique!

[Sepiana]

Mar 11, 2023 23:47:07 GMT Howard said:

I'm on Win 10 Pro 64 bit version is 22H2 and it meets all the requirements.
It's a decent machine with, HP Spectre, 8GB RAM, i7 chip.

Yes, it happened for the first time shortly after I upgraded to 2023.

Howard, thanks! Your answers to my questions are very helpful.

Let's start the troubleshooting by resetting the Crop tool.

1. Activate the Crop tool.
2. Go to the right end of the Tool Options area.
3. Click on the four-line square.
4. Select "Reset Tool" from the drop-down menu.

If the above doesn't fix the problem, try this "trick". It seems to fix many glitches Elements develops.

1. Right-click on the desktop shortcut and select "Run as administrator".
2. Test the Crop tool.
3. If the problem went away, close Elements.
4. Open Elements again but this time do it from your standard user account.

[Howard]

Solved!
I tried resetting the tool as you suggested and while that didn't fix it, in doing so I noticed that it happens when I change the crop size and then draw the crop rectangle while one of the dimensions boxes is still active i.e. highlighted.
The first crop draw is seen by PSE as confirming/submitting the size (when size box goes from white to grey), so it doesn't crop.

If I set the dimensions, tab or click out of the size box to submit it and then draw, all is good.
I hope that makes sense!

Your advice is much appreciated!

[Sepiana]

Howard, you are most welcome! Glad to hear "Solved!".

While I waited to hear from you, I paid a visit to the Adobe Support Community. A new feature Adobe introduced in PSE 13 -- Auto-crop Suggestions -- seems to create glitches. See if turning off this feature will help the Crop tool.

1. Go to Edit > Preferences > General.
2. Turn off "Enable Crop Pre-Selection".

[Howard]

Already off, Sepiana

Thanks!