How to crop and resize a photo online

People often say "resize" when they mean one of two different things. Cropping cuts away the parts of the frame you don't want — the picture keeps its detail, you just keep less of it. Resizing changes the pixel dimensions of the whole image: a 4000-pixel-wide photo becomes, say, 1200 pixels wide, and every pixel is recalculated.

Knowing which one you need saves time. If a headshot has too much background, crop it. If a photo is simply too large to email or upload, resize it. Often you'll do both — crop to the composition you want, then resize down to a sensible size.

Open your picture in the EditItAll photo editor and pick the Crop tool. Drag a box over the part you want to keep, then press Enter to apply or Esc to start over. A few things make it precise:

• Lock an aspect ratio — 1:1 for a square avatar, 16:9 for a banner — so the crop stays in proportion as you drag.
• Already have a selection made? Use Crop to Selection to trim exactly to its bounds.
• Nothing is committed until you apply, and every crop is undoable, so you can experiment freely.

Because the editor runs entirely on your device, the photo is never sent anywhere while you work.

To change the image's size, open Image Size and type the width or height you want. You choose the resampling method that recalculates the pixels, so a photo scaled down stays crisp rather than blocky. Shrinking is clean; enlarging can only invent detail that was never captured, so treat upscaling as a last resort.

Image Size changes the picture itself. If you instead want more working space around the picture — extra margin for text or a border — use Canvas Size, which adds or removes area without rescaling what's already there. Once the dimensions are right you can keep editing: add text, adjust levels, or retouch before you export.

When the crop and size are right, export a PNG or JPG straight to your device. Reducing the pixel dimensions already cuts the file size a lot, which is usually why people resize in the first place. If you need to hit a specific target — an inbox limit or an upload cap — send the exported photo through the image compressor, or follow the steps in reduce image file size for email. Both run on your device too, so the picture still never leaves it.