Are you familiar with Crop Overlays in Lightroom?

Heads Up!

This article is several years old now, and much has happened since then, so please keep that in mind while reading it.

When ever you go into crop mode in Lightroom, you get lines, that , by default, line up to the rule of thirds – looking like this

Did you know, that you can change these lines to fit your cropping needs?

Well – and this may not come to a surprise for you, hence this article – you really can!

When you are in crop mode i Lightroom (press R in the develop module)
Now press the letter O (NOT zero!) on the keyboard, and you can now cycle through variations of cropping guide lines.

Look at all these marvellous variations. But let's not stop there – it's Christmas, so I'll give you one more thing.
On some of these variations – like the Golden Spiral and Diagonals – you have the option to "rotate" the guides.
You do this by pressing Shift + O (still NOT zero). The Golden Spiral for one, has 4 variations, and can really come in handy on some images. And so does some of the others. I have yet to find use for the grid (last image) ... but some day, I might see the light.

Hope you liked this little tip

Merry Christmas

Niels Steinmeier

Niels is on Twitter as