By Charlotte Reeves

"Don't crop before exporting from Lightroom!"

"Free cropping is a disaster waiting to happen!"

"Down with the 8x10 aspect ratio!"

Warning: this video is filled with potentially unpopular opinions.

Watch me justify and explain my way through these bold statements in this long-overdue video that covers best practices for cropping in Lightroom and Photoshop (with a fairly extensive side-rant about aspect ratios).

Find out when and how you should straighten your image (if it needs it), at what point in your workflow you should crop, how to crop non-destructively and why it's so important, why you should pick an aspect ratio and stick to it, and when to use various other aspect ratios.

If you want your work to look consistent and professional, and if you want to make life easier for yourself when printing products for clients, this video is a must-watch.

I'd recommend watching my workflow video about moving between Lightroom and Photoshop first, because this naturally builds on the concepts introduced there.

If you like these quick tutorials, you'll love our premium Unleashed Edits - full start-to-finish editing tutorials in Lightroom and Photoshop. These are available in our membership (along with a tonne of amazing pet photography education). We hope to see you there!