You can even use the shortcut Command + Shift + A, although I find using the icon is even faster than the keyboard shortcut. If it’s not already visible in the Preview app, you can click the small pen tip icon (highlighted above) to display it, or you can open the View menu and click Show Markup Toolbar. To work with these special selection types, you’ll need to use the Markup Toolbar. In addition to rectangular selections, the Preview app can create rounded selections and even custom selection outlines in almost any shape that you’re capable of drawing!

You can also hold down the Shift key while clicking and dragging a corner handle to lock the aspect ratio of your selection. To resize your crop selection, click and drag any one of the eight round blue handles that are positioned around the edges of your selection (shown above). The cursor will change to a hand, which indicates that you can click and drag to reposition the entire selection area. To adjust your crop selection placement, position your mouse cursor inside the selection area.

This allows you to get the perfect placement for your crop every time! The first spot you click will become the new top left corner of your cropped image, but you can also work from the bottom right if you prefer.įortunately, because this is all digital, you can adjust the selection area as many times as you want before you actually complete the crop.

To make a rectangular selection, open the Tools menu and select Rectangular Selection.Ĭlick and drag to place your selection around the area of the image you want to keep. If you were cropping a printed photo, you might have to rely on a ruler to help you estimate this, but when cropping digital images, a selection outline does a much better job. The most fundamental part of cropping an image is the process of choosing which parts of the image you want to keep. Launch the Preview app, then open the File menu and click Open.īrowse through your files and select the image you want to crop, then click the Open button. Opening an image in Preview is extremely easy. It can even crop Photoshop PSD files without using Photoshop! The Preview app can read a wide range of image and document formats, and it can crop just about any file that it can open, including JPG, GIF, PNG, and TIFF files. If you want a bit more detail about how to crop an image in Preview, as well as how to apply a few unexpected crop formats, then read on! Step 1: Open Your Image in Preview

Step 2: Make a selection around the area you want to keep.Īt this point, you can print your cropped image, export it as a new file, or copy and paste it into another app.

I’m going to break down the three easy steps in detail.

3 Easy Steps to Crop an Image in Preview.

Cropping images on mac