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Free Image Cropper

Crop a photo to exactly the area you want. Choose a ratio or crop freely, then download the result as PNG, JPG or WebP.

A good crop is half of good photography

Professional photographers crop constantly, and for a simple reason: you rarely get the framing perfect in the camera, and what you leave out matters as much as what you keep. This free cropper lets you cut a picture down to the part that matters. Drag the box, choose a fixed shape such as a square or widescreen, or type exact pixel values, then save the result as PNG, JPG or WebP. Everything runs in your browser.

Move, resize, or type the numbers

When the image loads, a crop box appears over it. Drag the box to move it and drag its edges and corners to resize. If you choose an aspect ratio, the box keeps that shape as you resize it. Free lets you crop any shape. For precision, use the X and Y fields for the top-left corner and the Width and Height fields for the size, all in pixels, and use Select all to start from the full image. Typing numbers is the way to get the same crop on several pictures, or to match a size a form demands.

Which ratio for which job

1:1 square for profile pictures, grid posts and product thumbnails.
4:5 portrait for feeds where tall pictures take more screen space.
3:2 the shape of most camera photos and 4 by 6 inch prints.
4:3 and 3:4 the classic compact camera and tablet shapes.
16:9 widescreen for video thumbnails, slides and banners.
9:16 tall for stories and vertical video covers.

A ratio only fixes the shape, not the size. To end up with exact pixels such as 1080 by 1080, crop here and then use the image resizer, or use the social media image resizer to do both in one step.

Composition tips that actually help

Rule of thirds. Imagine the picture split into a three by three grid. Placing your subject near a line or crossing, instead of dead centre, usually looks more natural.
Leave room to look into. If a person faces left, leave more space on the left side than the right.
Do not cut at the joints. Cropping through ankles, knees or wrists looks awkward. Crop between them.
For portraits, keep a little space above the head. A crop that touches the top of the hair feels cramped.
Straighten the horizon. A tilted horizon is the most noticeable flaw in a landscape, and a crop cannot fix it, so rotate first in your editor.

Crop before you compress or resize

The order of operations matters. Cropping first discards the parts you do not need, so every later step spends its budget on the part you keep. If you must get a photo under a file size limit, crop here and then use one of the size tools, such as compress image to 50KB. Compressing first and cropping later means saving twice, and each save loses a little more detail.

Which format to save in

Save photographs as JPG for small files that open everywhere, or WebP for websites. Save screenshots, graphics and anything with transparency as PNG, so edges stay sharp and transparent areas stay transparent. The cropped area is copied at the original resolution, and the original file is never changed.

Cropping for printing

Common photo prints have fixed shapes. A 4 by 6 inch print is a 3:2 ratio, which matches most camera photos and is in the ratio list. A 5 by 7 inch print has a 7:5 shape, which is not in the list, but you can use the free setting and drag the box to roughly that shape, or type pixel values in that proportion. A square print uses 1:1. If you crop to a different ratio from the paper, the print shop will either trim or add white borders, so crop first to be sure of what you get.

Cropping screenshots

Screenshots often include things you do not want to share: a browser bar, a notification, a neighbouring window. Cropping them out is quick, and it is also a privacy habit worth forming. Save the result as PNG, since screenshots contain sharp text, and use the exact X, Y, width and height fields when you need the same crop on several shots in a row.