The Crop panel in Narrative lets you crop, change the aspect ratio of and level your photos while you cull. Narrative saves your crop with the photo, and it's applied when you send the photo to your editing software.
How do I crop a photo in Narrative?
Select the photo you want to crop.
Open the Crop panel from the vertical toolbar on the right, or press C.
Drag to adjust the crop, and choose an aspect ratio.
To level the photo, drag the level control or type an exact angle. Double-click the angle to reset it to 0.
Click Done, or press C to close the panel.
Narrative applies the crop as soon as you click Done or close the panel.
If you switch the crop between portrait and landscape, Narrative keeps the same aspect ratio. You can also keep the Close-ups panel open while you crop, so you can check faces as you adjust the composition.
How do I remove a crop?
To remove a crop from a photo, open the Crop panel and click Reset. The photo goes back to the aspect ratio it was shot in.
How do I crop several photos at once?
Batch Apply in the Crop panel copies one crop to many photos at once. It's useful when you need consistent crops across dozens or hundreds of photos, like corporate headshots, school formals, bridal parties and group shots.
Set the crop on one photo in the Crop panel.
Click Batch Apply.
Choose which photos to apply the crop to:
Current Selection: the photos you've selected.
Current Scene: every photo in the current Scene.
All Photos: every photo in the project.
Click Apply.
Narrative applies the crop to every photo you chose.
Important: Batch Apply replaces the existing crops on those photos, so double-check which option you picked before you click Apply.
When you batch apply a crop to photos with a different orientation, Narrative flips it for you. For example, a 9:16 crop applied to a landscape photo becomes 16:9.
How do I undo a batch crop?
To undo a batch crop, reset one photo, then batch apply that reset to the others:
Select one of the cropped photos and click Reset in the Crop panel.
Click Batch Apply.
Choose the same photos you applied the crop to, like Current Selection or Current Scene.
Click Apply.
The crop is removed from those photos.
Where does Narrative save my crop?
Narrative saves your crop in the photo's metadata, alongside your ratings. For RAW files, it's saved in an XMP sidecar file (a small file next to each photo that holds its edits and ratings) in your source folder. For JPEGs, it's saved inside the file itself. Keep the XMP files in the same folder as your photos, or your crops won't come with them. Learn how Narrative saves your progress.
Will my crop show up in Lightroom or Capture One?
Your Narrative crop is applied when you ship your photos to Lightroom or Capture One, so you'll see it straight away. Narrative doesn't export cropped files itself, so export your final cropped JPEGs from your editing software. Learn how metadata is saved.