Crop Image

How to use Crop Image

1. Choose a photo, or drop one onto the box.
2. Pick an aspect ratio (Free, 1:1, 4:3 or 16:9), then drag across the image to draw the crop area.
3. Drag inside the box to move it, or drag a corner handle to resize it.
4. Choose PNG or JPG and press Crop & download.

What cropping does and when to use it

Cropping removes the outer parts of a picture so that only the area you care about remains. It is the fastest way to improve a composition, cut out a distracting object near the edge, focus on a face, or remove a border or screenshot toolbar. Unlike resizing, cropping does not squash or stretch the picture; it simply discards pixels outside the selected rectangle.

Different destinations expect different shapes. Profile pictures are usually square, so the 1:1 preset is the right choice. Slide decks, YouTube thumbnails and most video frames use the widescreen 16:9 shape. Older monitors, many tablets and a lot of print formats follow 4:3. Picking a preset keeps the box locked to that shape while you drag, which avoids the common mistake of getting almost-but-not-quite the right proportions.

Tips for a good crop

• Leave a little breathing room around the subject instead of cutting right up to the edge.
• For portraits, place the eyes roughly one third down from the top of the frame.
• Start with the largest selection that contains your subject, then trim in. Use Select max area to begin with the biggest box allowed by the ratio.
• If the preview is small on a phone, rotate the device to landscape for a bigger working area.
• Keep a copy of the original. A cropped file cannot be expanded back to the full picture.

Limits and privacy

The tool reads standard browser image formats such as JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF and BMP. Animated GIFs are cropped as a single still frame. Very large photos work, but the preview may take a moment to appear on older phones because the browser must decode the whole image into memory.

Nothing is uploaded. The image is decoded by your browser, drawn onto a canvas, and the cropped result is created on your own device. Closing the page discards everything. Note that the output is a freshly encoded file, so camera metadata such as GPS location is not carried over into the cropped image.

Why use this crop image tool

• Aspect ratio presets. Lock the selection to square, 4:3 or widescreen 16:9, or leave it free for any shape.
• Touch friendly. Uses pointer events, so the same drag gestures work with a mouse, a finger or a stylus.
• Full-resolution output. The crop is cut from the original pixels, not from the smaller preview on screen.
• Private. Your picture is decoded and cropped locally and never sent to a server.

Frequently asked questions

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