Guys, please try to calm your tempers. This is post processing software, not religion or politics, and there is no reason for insults or name calling. We all have the same goal, to get the best images we can from this software. We may disagree on some things but does it really call for all this anger?
Mark
If you grab any of the corner handles move your mouse to the left or right, or up or down the crop box will shift from portrait to landscape or vice versa. You then have to manually position the box. Is that what you were referring to? Pardon the crude examples.
Mark
Which turns off auto and you are manually making sure not to create black slivers which is where the thread started. A 3/4 crop around the alcove in the image I posted is very tight. I would want the top left corner right on the (adjusted) image edge and to keep the crop cantered I would have to drag the top middle handle while looking at the top left corner (limiting how far I could zoom in). Also this image is light making the edge easy to see. It is easier to miss the problem on dark images.
I have created images with black slivers I didn’t notice till after export. I want an option for the software to not let me do that.
Work more carefully? I have many images with black edges and I have to pay attention as well. Perhaps DxO could add a light trace (blue, grey, red) at the edge of the image to indicate to us when we crop outside of the image area.
The instant solution now though is just to create one’s own starting preset with the palette Crop set to – Autocrop On, Unconstrained.
This works a treat even with portrait images as they will be cropped roughly correctly as well. I have that palette set up in my default Preset (along with Noise Reduction and Lens Sharpening turned off by default). This means that as soon as I adjust Horizon (I use Horizon much more often than Perspective), I start with a passable crop. Big time saver. In the case of your sample image, I believe those settings would result in an autocrop like this for your sample image, which would be a very good start.
There’s nothing really wrong with the Crop tool the way it is, as Mark has said as well. Both of us do a lot of work in PhotoLab and are quick to ask for improvements where required. We also try to work with the tools DxO has given us first.
This behaviour is caused by “Aspect Ratio” : “Preserve Aspect Ratio” mode.
Then it keeps the framing ratio as Shot and "clues the bottom side a base for the crop on the bottom.
If you dont like this create a partial preset which include only the two:
Perspective (from DxO viewpoint module)
crop.
So you can apply on command in one click.
No need to include an active Perspective or Horizon palette in the preset. They should only be enabled if needed. On the other hand, a default active Crop palette does save time when/if one enables Perspective or Horizon (I use the latter very often, the former seldom though it’s awesome when you need it. I deliberately left a bit of perspective distortion in the image to retain a natural effect (absolutely straight looks artificial).
Personally, I have no problem with the crop tool, but I understand that in some instances the tool’s limitations, as currently implemented, may be frustrating to use for some people and may also require a greater manual effort, depending on the image. In a perfect world where DXO has sufficient resources to knock out enhancements like this on a very regular basis, I’d be all for it. Why not? But, alas, this is not a perfect world and there are many other things I would rather see take precedence.
Mark
i think every tool of every application can be improved from a certain point of view. Liked my earlier raw app that was full manual no auto perspective correction only auto horizon. But very well manual to handle with tilt/horizon shift and barrel/pincushion.Got me learning understanding this tool.
So ad first i liked the auto mode of DxO Viewpoint as default on and after a wile i wanted more controll so i turned it off. This way i can look first and act later.
(i just made a quick preset to show that you can personalize a default crop action and if this default is “a always to use when i crop” then the startpreset of your choise with the selection and turned of works also fine. (that’s my default : perspective, horizon, crop are all off as tool because i like to see the original image first before i choose the path to end result.) But then again i don’t have 1000 images to process.)
Indeed 100% perspective can cause artificial look and sometime 100% isn’t enough to get a doorframe straight. then the focussing distance correction can help out.
That’s on of the reasons i don’t have a quick button build, i apply different approaches in perspective module and crop after that wile looking for the right look.
Often the line placing does a better job then just automode to get a natural look.
But in general i think if you use alot of same kind of setting for crop/horizon/perspective a short list of partial presets can help out to speed up your workflow without any new programming from DxO.
like turning on the grid , 16/9 keystoning-crop and auto horizon as starting point for a landscape image in one click.
I think I understand : there are 2 needs :
regarding (2)
no! “we” do not want a “black background” after move and resize the cropped area – see title of this thread! 
