Cropping photos is a fundamental skill for anyone working with images, whether you’re a professional photographer or just want to tidy up pictures for social media. Cropping helps you to remove unnecessary parts of an image, focus attention on the subject, and improve overall composition. For Mac users, Preview is a built-in, free, and powerful tool that makes image cropping incredibly easy. This guide will walk you through the simple steps on how to crop photos on Mac Preview, enhancing your images in just a few clicks.
To begin, locate the image you wish to crop in Finder. Once you’ve found it, simply double-click the image. This will automatically open it in Preview, the default image viewer for macOS.
Now that your image is open in Preview, you need to activate the editing tools. If you don’t see a toolbar at the top of the Preview window with editing icons, go to the View menu in the top menu bar and select Show Markup Toolbar. This will display a range of tools for annotating and editing your image, including the selection tools we need for cropping.
The next step is to choose the Selection tool. In the Markup Toolbar, you’ll see several icons. Look for the icon that looks like a rectangle with a dashed border – this is the Selection tool. Click on this icon to activate it. Often, the default selection is the Rectangular Selection, which is perfect for most cropping tasks.
With the Selection tool active, position your cursor on the image where you want to start your crop. Click and drag your mouse to draw a rectangular selection around the area you want to keep. As you drag, you’ll see a dashed rectangle forming, outlining your selected area. Adjust the size and position of the selection by dragging the edges or corners until you are satisfied with the crop area.
Once you’ve made your selection, look for the Crop button in the Markup Toolbar. It’s typically located in the toolbar after the selection tools and looks like a rectangle being trimmed. Click the Crop button. Preview will immediately remove the area outside of your selection, cropping your image to the selected bounds.
Finally, to save your cropped image, go to the File menu in the top menu bar and select Save. This will save the cropped image, overwriting the original file unless you choose “Save As” to create a new file. It’s always a good practice to use “Save As” and rename your file (e.g., adding “_cropped” to the filename) to keep the original image intact, especially when you are just learning how to crop photos on Mac Preview.
Cropping in Preview is a straightforward process that can significantly improve your photos. By following these simple steps, you can easily focus on the key elements of your images and create visually appealing results using just your Mac’s built-in Preview application.
