How to crop a photo
- Open the photo — on a phone you can take one straight away.
- Frame it on the thirds grid and straighten the horizon if it tilts.
- Press Crop Picture and download the full-resolution result.
Composition: where to put the crop
The rule-of-thirds grid is switched on for this page. Placing a horizon on one of the horizontal lines, or a face near one of the four crossings, usually reads better than dead centre. Press G to cycle through the other guides: centre cross, golden ratio and diagonals.
Crop generously around moving subjects — leave space in the direction someone is looking or walking — and keep limbs whole rather than cutting at a joint.
Straightening a tilted horizon
Drag the Straighten slider until the fine grid lines up with the horizon or a building edge. A tilt of one or two degrees is common with phone photos and is surprisingly visible once fixed. Auto-straighten looks for the dominant near-level line on your device and suggests an angle you can adjust.
Portrait or landscape
Most phone photos are 4:3 and most camera photos are 3:2. Use the swap button to turn 4:3 into 3:4 without losing your framing, or rotate the whole picture in 90° steps with R. For prints, 3:2 matches a 6 × 4 inch print exactly.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my phone photo come out sideways in other croppers?
Phones often store a photo sideways and add a small note saying which way is up. CropPicture applies that note before anything else, so what you crop is what you see — and the saved file is simply the right way up.
How precise is Straighten?
From −45° to +45° in 0.1° steps. On a keyboard, [ and ] nudge by 0.1° and Shift makes it 1°. The crop shrinks just enough to keep empty corners out of the result.
Does cropping lower the resolution?
No. The part you keep is saved at the photo’s full resolution. Resizing only happens if you set an output size yourself.
Is the location in my photo kept?
No. GPS location is always removed, and if the photo you open contains it you are told so up front.