If I rotate an image – be it with the transform tool, rotate arbitrary function, or whatever... I end up with triangular white space on all 4 corners.
My aim is to crop the white space out, but leave as much of the original photo there as possible.
So I start by creating 4 guides at the most intrusive point in each triangle, and then go back along them once or twice to adjust the guides.
This makes sense, because the most intrusive corner from 1 triangle is going to cut a lot out of the image, however if you factor in the 2 adjacent corners then maybe I don't need to cut quite that much out.
I know I'm not explaining this very well...
Anyway, I am able to get the maximum usable picture in relatively few steps – but it still takes a lot of fiddling around to adjust the guides to the maximum points, and then select/crop and clear guides.
Is there a quicker method? some bizarre combination of selects/inverses to get the same result? Maybe even a dedicated photoshop function that has simply eluded me?
Also – when stitching photos together for a panorama, I sometimes get arcs of white space. If possible, the method should work with these also.
The reason I ask is because I'm about to start fixing up and stitching a large amount of photos, and I'd rather not spend 5 minutes on each one if possible.
Thanks
I know how to use the crop tool - but I want to crap all the blank area away after rotating the image, and keep AS MUCH of the original image as possible.
This is possible to do with the crop tool, but it's very fiddly - zooming in, adjusting the corner, zooming out, etc..
As I said in my original question - I want to know if there is a more efficient way to crop away the triangular (or circular for panoramas) blank space after rotating an image, but keeping AS MUCH of the original as possible.
My aim is to crop the white space out, but leave as much of the original photo there as possible.
So I start by creating 4 guides at the most intrusive point in each triangle, and then go back along them once or twice to adjust the guides.
This makes sense, because the most intrusive corner from 1 triangle is going to cut a lot out of the image, however if you factor in the 2 adjacent corners then maybe I don't need to cut quite that much out.
I know I'm not explaining this very well...
Anyway, I am able to get the maximum usable picture in relatively few steps – but it still takes a lot of fiddling around to adjust the guides to the maximum points, and then select/crop and clear guides.
Is there a quicker method? some bizarre combination of selects/inverses to get the same result? Maybe even a dedicated photoshop function that has simply eluded me?
Also – when stitching photos together for a panorama, I sometimes get arcs of white space. If possible, the method should work with these also.
The reason I ask is because I'm about to start fixing up and stitching a large amount of photos, and I'd rather not spend 5 minutes on each one if possible.
Thanks

I know how to use the crop tool - but I want to crap all the blank area away after rotating the image, and keep AS MUCH of the original image as possible.
This is possible to do with the crop tool, but it's very fiddly - zooming in, adjusting the corner, zooming out, etc..
As I said in my original question - I want to know if there is a more efficient way to crop away the triangular (or circular for panoramas) blank space after rotating an image, but keeping AS MUCH of the original as possible.