Crop images

- Let's see how to crop images in GIMP. To get the crop tool, click it in the tool box or press the keyboard shortcut Shift-C. And I'll start by just clicking and dragging in the image here. the image here, and using the crop tool, And using the crop tool looks a lot like looks a lot like makinga rectangular selection. making a rectangular selection. I see the familiar handles I can drag to resize resize the crop area in the corners, the crop area in the corners and the sides and the sides, and with my cursor in the and with my cursor in the middle of the area middle of the area, Ican click and drag to I can click and drag to move the crop area. move the crop area, and also notice that And also notice that the area outside the crop is darkened the area outside the crop is darkened to to help me picture what the cropped version help me picture whatthe cropped version of of this photo will look like.

this photo will look like. This is because highlight is selected in the tool options. the tool options. If I turn that off I can see the whole image as normal. I'll turn it back on. And let's take a look at the other tool options. other tool options. First I can crop the entire image or just the current layer. or just the current layer. Next is the option to allow growing. With this turned on, you can define a crop area that's larger than your current image or layer and increase the canvas size. So with it off, I can only drag the crop to the corner.

But if I turn it on, I can drag past the edge of the image to actually make it larger by cropping. And you can choose what to fill the new pixels with. And I can always see the exact position and size of the crop area here in the tool options. the crop area here in the tool options, And as I drag, the size and aspect ratio of the crop crop appears below the image in the appears below the image in the status bar down here. status bar, down here. Also, when I have my cursor positioned inside the crop area, crop area I can moveit in small amounts by I can move it in small amounts by using my keyboard arrow keys.

using my keyboard arrow keys, Or I can hold the Shift key and press the arrow keys arrow keys to move thecrop area in larger jumps. to move the crop area in larger jumps. If I want to get rid of my crop area and start again, I can press Escape. And I can draw freely, or I can have a fixed aspect ratio. or I can have a fixed aspect ratio. So for example to force a crop that's twice as wide as it is tall, wide as it is tall, I can turn this on, I can turn this on, and enter 2:1 and enter two colonone, and click and drag.

and click and drag. I'll press Escape and start over. And I can also choose a fixed width, a fixed height, or a fixed size. For example I can set a crop of 1024 by 768 in landscape orientation. landscape orientationand drag in the image, And drag in the image. Or, if I want to crop to a specific size for print, like say six by four, I can deselect fixed, set the size units to inches, and the width to six,and the height to four, and the width to six and the height to four.

And there's my six by four crop. I can also show various kinds of guides with choices like center lines, choices like center lines, rule of thirds, and so on. And there are also options to have the crop area crop area shrink to fit visiblepixels in the current layer, shrink to fit visible pixels in the current layer, or all visible pixels with the shrink merged option. And when I have a crop area sized and positioned just as I want it, I can click inside that area to crop the image. and I want to point out,also, that is I have an And I want to point out also that if I have an active active selection using anyof the selection tools, selection using any of the selection tools, I can crop the image to the selection area by going going to the image menu, to the image menu and choosing Crop to Selection.

and choosing, crop to selection. That can be really convenient if you already have a selection that you know you'd like to use to crop the image, crop the image, you can skipthe crop tool, altogether. you can skip the crop tool altogether. So that's a look at cropping in GIMP. Not only can you trim the edges off an image, you can also increase the size of images, crop individual layers, crop to fixed sizes or aspect ratios. or aspect ratios.