Crop Image
Cut an image to the area you need.
How to use Crop Image
Select the image you want to crop.
Drag the selection over the preview, or type exact X, Y, width and height values.
Click Crop.
Download the cropped image.
Cropping is composition, not just trimming
Most photographs improve by being cropped, because most were framed in a hurry. Cutting away what does not contribute makes the subject bigger in the frame and the picture clearer about what it is of.
The two moves worth learning: crop in until the subject fills the frame, and crop out anything at the edges that pulls the eye — a bright patch, a stray limb, the corner of a car. The classic guideline is to place the subject a third of the way in rather than dead centre, though centring works well when the subject is symmetrical.
Cropping to a required aspect ratio
Most crops exist because something downstream demands a shape. Set the ratio first, then move the frame — cropping freehand and resizing afterwards stretches the image, and stretched faces are unmistakable.
- 1:1 square — profile pictures, Instagram posts, product grids.
- 4:5 portrait — the tallest ratio Instagram shows in full in the feed.
- 9:16 vertical — stories, Reels, TikTok, full-screen mobile.
- 16:9 widescreen — YouTube thumbnails, presentation slides, video stills.
- 1.91:1 — link preview cards on Facebook, LinkedIn and X.
How much you can afford to cut
Cropping discards pixels, so what remains must still be big enough for where it is going. A 12-megapixel phone photo cropped to a quarter of its area still leaves 3 megapixels — ample for the web, adequate for a small print.
The rule of thumb: keep at least 1000 pixels on the long edge for web use and 2000 for print. Below that you will be tempted to enlarge the crop back up, which only adds softness.
ID and passport photos
These have strict, published requirements and they vary by country: exact pixel dimensions, a specified proportion of the frame occupied by the head, a plain background and a neutral expression. Look up the current specification for the issuing country before cropping — a photo rejected at submission costs far more time than checking does.
Every step runs inside your browser, using the WebAssembly and Canvas APIs your device already ships with. No file is uploaded, no copy is kept, and nothing sits in a queue on a server waiting to be deleted — which is also why the tool keeps working with the network disconnected.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I crop to exact pixel dimensions?
Yes. Type the X and Y offset plus the width and height, and the crop uses those exact values.
Does cropping reduce image quality?
The kept area is unchanged for PNG. For JPG and WEBP the image is re-encoded at high quality, which is visually lossless in practice.
Is my image uploaded?
No. Cropping happens locally in your browser.
Does cropping reduce image quality?
It does not degrade the pixels that remain — those are untouched. It reduces the total pixel count, so a heavily cropped image cannot be displayed as large as the original without softening.
How do I crop to an exact size in pixels?
Crop to the correct aspect ratio first, then resize the result to the exact dimensions. Trying to hit exact pixels by dragging distorts the image if the ratio does not match.
Can I undo a crop after downloading?
Not from the cropped file — the removed pixels are not in it. Your original is untouched, so crop again from that.
What ratio should a profile picture be?
Square (1:1) on essentially every platform, usually displayed as a circle. Keep the important part away from the corners, since they will be cut off by the circular mask.
How do I crop several images to the same size?
Set a fixed aspect ratio and apply it to each, then resize them all to identical dimensions. Consistent ratios are what make a product grid or a gallery look deliberate rather than assembled.
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