Image Cropper

Cropping to a ratio without stretching

A crop keeps a rectangle of the original pixels and discards the rest. That is how you turn a landscape photo into a square avatar or a 16:9 YouTube thumbnail without squashing the subject. Stretching (changing width and height independently in a resizer) is a different operation and usually looks wrong on faces.

Common ratios: 1:1 for avatars and Instagram feed tiles, 4:3 for classic camera stills, 3:2 for many DSLRs, 16:9 for HD video and most blog heroes, 9:16 for Stories and Shorts. Freeform is for when the composition matters more than a platform’s frame.

Drag the box to reframe, then pull the corner handle to resize. A locked ratio keeps the rectangle proportional as you resize. The dimmed area is what will be thrown away.

After cropping you may still want to resize (to 1080×1080, for example) or compress. Use the related tools rather than stacking lossy JPEG saves if quality matters.

Cropping is local. Animated GIFs contribute one frame. For print-quality work, crop in an editor that preserves colour profiles; this tool is for everyday web and social sizes.

How cropping works here

Pick a ratio — free, 1:1, 4:3, 3:2, 16:9 or 9:16 — and the crop box is fixed to that shape; drag inside the box to move it and use the corner handle to change its size. The download keeps the original pixels inside the box at full resolution, so cropping never blurs an image. Choose PNG, JPEG or WebP for the output; for JPEG and WebP the quality slider sets the compression.

Which ratio for which job

• 1:1 — profile pictures, app and product thumbnails, Instagram square posts.
• 4:3 — most phone and compact-camera photos, presentation slides in the older format.
• 3:2 — DSLR and mirrorless photos, 6×4-inch prints.
• 16:9 — YouTube thumbnails, video frames, modern slides and wide website banners.
• 9:16 — Stories, Reels, TikTok and phone wallpapers.
• Free — when a site asks for something else, such as 1.91:1 for Open Graph link previews. Crop roughly here, then set exact pixels in the image resizer.

Composition tips

• Rule of thirds: place eyes, horizons or the main subject on the lines a third of the way in, rather than dead centre.
• Leave room in the direction someone is looking or moving.
• For profile pictures that will be shown in a circle, keep the face well inside the square — the corners are cut off.
• Crop out distracting edges first; it is the cheapest way to make a photo look intentional.
• Straighten a tilted horizon before cropping tightly — the tilt becomes more obvious once the frame edges are close to it.

Cropping, resolution and privacy

Cropping reduces the pixel count, so a tight crop of a small part of a photo may be too small for print: at 300 pixels per inch, a 6×4-inch print needs about 1800×1200 pixels. Check the output size shown before you crop further. The image is processed only in your browser, and the exported file does not carry over EXIF metadata such as the camera’s GPS location.

Banner and header shapes

Wide banners use ratios the presets do not cover. Use free mode, aim for these shapes, then resize to the exact pixels:

• LinkedIn personal background: 1584 × 396 (4:1).
• X (Twitter) header: 1500 × 500 (3:1).
• Facebook page cover: about 1640 × 624, roughly 2.6:1 — keep text in the centre, because mobile shows less of the sides.
• Open Graph link preview: 1200 × 630 (1.91:1).

For passport and ID photos with exact millimetre sizes, use the ID photo maker instead.