cropping multiple images with same ratio

Get all the Images you want to crop to the same aspect ratio in one container (use an Album). Select the first one. Change to the Viewer. Bring up the Crop HUD. Change "Aspect Ratio" to "Custom" Put "27" in for width and "18" in for height (27 x 18 is the same as 13.5 x 9). Create and position a crop box where you want it. While staying in the Viewer, and without closing the Crop tool, move the selection to the next Image in the container (use {Command}+{Right Arrow}). The Crop tool should still be active, with the same aspect ratio selected. Create and position a crop box on this Image. Continue through all of the Images. Close the Crop tool. Your Images should all be cropped the way you want.

Note that you can do this in Split view as well.

Message was edited by: Kirby Krieger -- misstated the keyboard shortcut.

Once you have the first image cropped you can select all the other images stamp them all at once to get the correct crop and then as the need arises go back to each image and reposition the crop if needed.

If all the pages are the same size you might get lucky and not have to re-position the crop.

regards

jay pegg wrote:

Both techniques involved similar time.

There's (famously) no free lunch. If you want a crop customized for each Image, you are going to have to manually customize it for each Image. Every crop has three parameters you determine: the aspect ratio, the size, and the position on the original Image. Frank's method quickly gives you the aspect ratio and a size that is likely to be close to what you want (close enough in many cases), but you will have to re-position the crop rectangle on many Images. My method gives the aspect ratio you want, and let's you quickly and successively select the size and position (with one click-and-drag operation). Even with Frank's method, you would be smart (imho) to use my method of moving from Image to Image with the Crop tool active. You are correct: Both techniques involved similar time.

The Crop HUD, afaict, allows only integers in the Width and Height fields*. To convert 13.5 to an integer I needed to multiply by 2. To keep the aspect ratio the same, any arithmetic operation on one parameter must be applied to the other, so I multiplied 9 by 2. Thus, 27 x 18.

There are many ways to express the same ratio. I could have corrected for the incorrect parsing of the decimal by multiplying _both_ height and width by 10, and used 135 x 90. (13.5 x 9), (27 x 18), and (135 x 90) all represent the exact same aspect ratio. The simple way to express it is 3 x 2.

*This makes sense mathmatically (to me, a lapsed abstract tinkerer), but assumes, wrongly, that all users are sensible mathmeticians. The interface should be refined enough to either accept decimal input in those fields or refuse it. Currently, it accepts decimal input, but misreads it. You might send Apple a note and ask them to fix this: "Aperture➞Provide Aperture Feedback".

You should be able to use lift & stamp to copy the crop from the first image to all the others.