How the cropper works
Cropping keeps a rectangle of your photo and throws away everything outside it. Nothing inside the rectangle is stretched or resampled, so the pixels you keep are exactly the pixels you had.
When you open an image, the tool shows a smaller preview on screen so it stays smooth even on a phone. The crop box is measured in the original image’s pixels, and when you click Crop the full-resolution photo is cut in a background thread on your device. A 48-megapixel phone photo is cropped at its full 8064 × 6048 size, not at the size of the preview.
You can control the box three ways:
- Drag inside the box to move it, or drag one of the eight handles to resize it. This works with a mouse, a pen or a finger.
- Type exact values: X and Y are the top-left corner, measured from the top-left of the image, plus a width and height.
- Keyboard: tab to the box, then use the arrow keys to move it and Shift with the arrow keys to resize it.
Rotation and flips are applied first, so the box always matches what you see.
Aspect ratios and what they are for
An aspect ratio is the shape of the rectangle: width divided by height. Picking a ratio locks the shape while you drag.
| Ratio | Shape | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| 1:1 | Square | Profile pictures, Instagram and WhatsApp |
| 4:5 | Tall | Instagram portrait posts |
| 4:3 | Classic photo | Most phone cameras, presentations |
| 3:2 | 35 mm photo | DSLR photos, 6 × 4 inch prints |
| 16:9 | Widescreen | YouTube thumbnails, laptop wallpapers, slides |
| 9:16 | Vertical video | Stories, Reels, TikTok covers |
Worked example: a square profile photo
A phone photo is 4032 × 3024 pixels. Choose 1:1 and the tool places the largest possible square in the middle: 3024 × 3024, starting at X = 504, so 504 pixels are trimmed from each side. Drag the square left or right until your face is centred and click Crop. The result is a 3024 × 3024 JPG. Most profile pictures are shown at 400 pixels or less, so you can then shrink it to, say, 800 × 800 with Resize Image, which also cuts the file from several megabytes to well under 200 KB.
Crop, resize or compress?
These three are often confused:
- Crop changes what is in the picture by cutting off the edges. The shape can change; the detail that remains does not.
- Resize keeps the whole picture but changes its pixel dimensions, for example from 4032 × 3024 to 1600 × 1200.
- Compress keeps the picture and its dimensions but stores it in fewer bytes, by lowering the quality slightly.
For a form that needs an exact photo size and file size, do all three in order: crop to the right shape here, resize to the required pixels, then use Compress to KB to get under the limit.
Tips for better crops
- Use the grid. The faint lines split the box into thirds. Placing eyes, horizons or the subject on those lines usually looks better than dead centre.
- Leave breathing room. Cropping tightly against a head or object can feel cramped; keep a little space in the direction the person is looking.
- Straighten first. If the photo is sideways, rotate it before choosing the crop.
- Mind the resolution. A small crop from a large photo can end up only a few hundred pixels wide. Check the width and height shown on the button before you print it.
- Formats. The result keeps the original format: JPG stays JPG (saved at high quality), PNG stays PNG with its transparency, WebP stays WebP. HEIC photos become JPG. To make the file smaller afterwards, use Compress Image.