Crop to an exact size or a ratio
The four number fields show the box in source pixels: X and Y are the distance from the left and top edge, width and height are its size. Typing a number moves the box at once, and moving the box updates the numbers. A number that does not fit, such as an X that would push the box past the edge, is marked and not applied.
Pick a ratio and the box locks to that shape. Changing the ratio gives the largest box of the new shape that fits the picture, centred where your box was. When you drag a corner the opposite corner stays put, and when you drag an edge of a locked shape the other side follows around the middle of the box. The height is always the rounded result of the width, so the shape is right to within half a pixel. The swap button turns 3:2 into 2:3, a custom 5:2 into 2:5, and so on.
A few ratios and what they are often used for:
- 1:1 for square posts and profile pictures. 4:5 and 5:4 for tall and wide posts.
- 3:2 for photos from most cameras and for prints, 4:3 for many phone photos, 2:3 and 3:4 for the portrait versions.
- 16:9 for video, slides and thumbnails, 9:16 for vertical video.
To make a picture a specific size, such as exactly 800 by 600 pixels, type 800 and 600 in the fields. The box cannot be larger than the picture. To make a picture smaller or larger without cutting anything off, use the image resizer instead.
Cut from the full resolution picture
The picture on screen is a smaller copy, so it loads fast and fits the page. Your crop does not come from that copy. The box is converted to the pixels of the original and the crop is copied straight out of the full resolution picture, with no scaling. If you set a box of 1234 by 567 pixels at X 2500 and Y 1500, you get exactly those pixels.
Saving is the only step that can change them, with one exception for transparency. PNG saves the pixels exactly, so a crop saved as PNG has the same pixels as the original, apart from pixels that are partly see-through. The browser holds those with their colour already multiplied by their transparency, so their colour can shift. We measured a PNG that had every transparency level. The see-through value never changed. The colour of pixels at least half opaque changed by at most 1 level out of 255, of pixels 25 to 50 percent opaque by at most 2, and of pixels 6 to 25 percent opaque by at most 8. The colour of an almost invisible pixel can change more, and a fully transparent pixel loses its colour. Fully opaque pixels are exact. JPG, WebP and AVIF compress the crop, so saving a JPG crop as JPG compresses it once more. At the default quality of 90 the difference is hard to see, but it is not zero. Some desktop programs can cut a JPG on block boundaries without recompressing it, and this tool cannot.
Metadata is removed by default, so the cropped file carries no camera details, date or GPS location. Choose Keep to copy the EXIF block from JPG, PNG and WebP originals. A photo stored sideways with a rotation note is turned upright before you see it, and the note is reset in any copy.
Circles, rounded corners and transparency
A circle or rounded crop makes the corners of the file transparent. Transparency needs a format that can hold it, so JPG is switched off for these shapes and the format changes to PNG. WebP and AVIF keep the transparent corners too. For a rounded rectangle the slider sets the corner radius as a share of the shorter side, from square corners to fully round, and shows the size in pixels.
A circle always has a square box, so the aspect ratio is locked to 1:1 while the circle is selected. The previous ratio comes back when you return to a rectangle. For a page about round profile pictures, see circle crop.
Mouse, touch, pen and keyboard
- Drag inside the box to move it, on an edge to change one side, on a corner to change two. With a mouse, drag outside the box to draw a new one.
- Touch and pen. Pointer events are used, so a finger or a stylus works like a mouse. The grab zone of an edge is 44 pixels wide for a finger, 32 for a pen and 20 for a mouse, measured on the screen. On a box smaller than about 48 pixels across, the zone for a finger gets a little narrower (about 38 pixels at 30 pixels across, about 30 at 8), so the middle can still be grabbed to move the box. On a touch screen only the box and its grab zones take a drag, so a swipe anywhere else on the picture scrolls the page.
- Keyboard. Tab to the crop box, then use the arrow keys to move it by 1 pixel, or 10 with Shift. Hold Alt with the arrow keys to resize it by 1 pixel, or 10 with Shift and Alt.
- Buttons. Reset returns to a starting box, Centre puts the box in the middle without changing its size.
After cropping you can press Crop again to change the box and make another version without opening the picture again, or Choose another image to start over.