Cropping Photos for Your Project

Cropping photos allows you remove the outer portions of an image, which can have a tremendous impact. So let’s explore why and how to crop photos.

This image is the universal symbol for cropping. You will likely see it on any software or app that allows the editing of photos and if you haven’t used it yet, you’re going to love it!

Today’s digital cameras and smartphones take high resolution photos, which means you could actually crop an image significantly and still have a photo that can be printed at a decent size. Take this photo, for instance.

If I just wanted to focus on the surfer, I could crop it like this:

Another great use of the cropping tool is when you are taking a photo of a photo. It’s really difficult to get your camera exactly parallel to the photo. Below you can see that the top of my photo is a little wider than the bottom because may iPhone was at a slight angle. I simply cropped off the edges and you can’t even tell.

So how do you crop a photo? Well, almost every computer or smartphone has this feature, as well as most word processing software. Remember to look for the Crop Symbol . Once you find it and are in Crop mode, grab the handles that appear on the crop box and drag them to where you want.

Cropping photos isn’t difficult once you get the hang of it and it will give you some options for photos that previously seemed worthless. If you need more help learning how to crop photos on your specific device, here are some resources that may help.

• Editing photos on iPad or iPhone – Excellent video on using the iPad and iPhone built-in editing tools to crop, rotate, and adjust lighting and color.
• Cropping on Android – Cropping is fairly simple using Google Photos on Android.
• Cropping in Windows 10 – Using the built-in Photos app
• Cropping in Windows 7 – Using Windows Live Photo Gallery
• Working with photos in Microsoft Word – If you are using Word to edit your memoir or autobiography, this may be the easiest way to crop and edit your photos.
• Working with photos on MemoirWorkbook.com – If you are using MemoirWorkbook.com, there is a crop tool built right into your project.