MacOS Sonoma - Photo cropping/resizing bug in Photo App

Have you tried selecting Freeform as an aspect ratio?

I am only seeing this problem, when I straighten the photo. Then the cropping rectangle might hit the border of the image and will no longer allow us to resize the cropping rectangle. Or when the aspect ratio is not set to Freeform.

To compare notes on problems when cropping to would help to have more background information.

What kind of photos are yfunrying to crop? Have the photos been taken with an iPhone and has the iPhone camera been set to a specific aspect ratio? You could try to revert the photo to the original before trying to crop it.

Are you using iCloud Photos and optimize Storage? Are you trying to adjust the size right after importing the photos, staring fro the Recents album? Directly after importing Photos is sometimes very unresponsive. I am usually waiting until Photos had time to index the photos before I try to add adjustments or crop them.

Before the latest update I could crop each side of my photo's independently but now another retrograde step from Apple it only allows you to change the whole photo size which I find useless. I need to be able to remove any unnecessary background irrespective of its size. Another instance of apple going backwards?

Yes and it changes the whole photo not just one side as I could do before. I need to be able to email just the main part of my target so having taken the photo with my iPhone I have an oblong photo which I need to crop one side not the whole thing but the new os doesn't work that way anymore. the closest I can get is by using "square and as long as I have close cropped the sides when taking the photo this works just about. All I want to do is to be able to adjust all four sides independently not much to ask as we had this facility before. Sometimes things are not a step forward they are a step back and it is not progress!

This may or may not help-- My M1 Air was doing crazy things in Photos and other Graphics programs. Seemed like memory leakage to me, so I did the hardware diagnostics, re-installed the OS (had not done that in 35 years of Macs) and nothing I tried worked.

I took it to Genius Bar. They could find nothing wrong. They suggested that on a 1TB drive, my 120 GB free was not enough! I thought they were crazy, but I moved 350GB to an external drive, and the problems have not re-occurred. Could be luck, of course, so I'm still waiting for the bombshell. Apparently heavy graphics requires lots of memory swapping. That could be the difference between your computers.

They also said that my 83% battery health might be a problem-- heavy use perhaps draws more current, and the M chips don't like it. Now I'm trying to run down my battery below 80% so they will replace if for free.

Anyway-- it's something to try.

Same here on an M2 Mac Mini, brand new.

Come to crop a document down a bit and if I rotate it first, I then can't crop. Not the case if I crop first, then rotate.

Solution? Buy one of the screens with the more expensive standmount that lets you change from Landscape to Portrait?

Just upgraded to Sonoma today on my iMac. Was concerned about doing it...but, well, took the plunge. I can no longer re-size or crop my personal photos for my business promo releases as of this hour. I have a major musical release in a matter of days and future ones following, dependent on this app working. Sorry to personalize this, but hey. Been using Mac for decades. NEVER encountered this before. Things should NOT be made more difficult for your clients. Should be made easier. Not cool! Please rectify this ASAP! Best!

MBP M2Pro 14inch. No such issue here. Create a new library, import a shot or two and see if the issue is repeated there.

Yes, please let us know, if you hear more from Apple about a possible solution. Occasionally, the cropping will require a restart on my MacBook Air with Apple M2 Chip too.

Well it work as expected here. Try restart your Mac and try again.

I also have a brand new Mac Mini, with this same problem.