How to Crop an Image in Photoshop: 4 Easiest Ways for Beginners

Summary: In this article, we introduced three ways to crop an image in photoshop and how to crop the GIF image. Besides, we shared how to crop the image in an easier way by Fotor's free online image crop tool to choose the method that best suits you when you need it.

crop an child image by photoshop in an laptap

You might meet the occasions that you got a nice picture but the space around the subject is too large you may want to crop the size. Or, if you have a specific size and shape of the image you want, you can use the crop tool to achieve this.

In this tutorial we’ll introduce some basic Photoshop crop skills that suits common crop needs and also an online photo cropper which can also crop the photo without any photoshop skills.

How to Crop an Image in Photoshop?

As the most common professional software used to deal with image problems, Photoshop can certainly do the basic operation of cropping photos. Because crop photos have many different formats and usages, there are many ways to crop photos in Photoshop.

how to crop image in photoshop

Today we will introduce several different crop methods suitable for different situations which you can choose according to your needs.

How to Crop an Image with Crop Tool in Photoshop?

Crop Tool is a common and easy way in photoshop to crop an image. It suits most of the basic needs of cropping an image. Let’s learn how to finish your cropping by the Crop Tool!

1. Open the image you want to crop, and then click C to activate the crop tool Photoshop function.

2. Drag the Markers of the Crop Frame, and you can see markers on the screen to suit your purpose.

3. Press Enter (Top Panel-Check Mark) and voila. Now you've finished image cropping.

crop image using crop tool in photoshop

How to Crop an Image in a Circle Shape in Photoshop?

If you want to know how to circle crop images in Photoshop, you can try to create a circle layer by Elliptical Marquee Tool.

1. Open the image you want to crop, and select the Elliptical Marquee Tool.

2. If you want to select a perfect circle, hold Shift while you create a selection.

3. Press Control-X and then Control-V and then Delete the Background layer. In this way, we can create a crop photoshop layer and you can get the cropped layer.

crop image in circle shape using photoshop


How to Crop a Picture in Photoshop Using a Clipping Mask?

If you want to know how to crop a single layer in Photoshop, we can use a Clipping Mask to do this.

1. Open the image, and select the Ellipse Tool to create a shape above the area which you would like to cut. This step is to create a circle shape.

2. Put the Ellipse Layer below the image, then click Right Click-Create a Clipping Mask.

3. Change the position of the mask just by moving the Ellipse layer.

Here's a video tutorial about how to cropping images with clipping masks in photoshop as the example:

How to Crop a GIF Image in Photoshop by Cropping a Layer?

GIF file is a specific format of the image type, it is possible to meet the occasion that needs to crop the gif file. It can still achieve in Photoshop in just a few steps:

1. Open the GIF image in Photoshop and then go to Window > Timeline to see all the frames.

2. Then, you can use any of the previous methods to crop the image. Using the free crop Photoshop tool so press C and crop your favorite image. All the frames of our GIF animation have been cropped so there is not much difference between cropping still images and GIF files.

Here's a video about how to crop a GIF into a specific size:

How to Crop an Image in Online Photo Editor?

Fotor's free online photo cropper allows you to easily crop and modify any image to the exact size you want. No Photoshop skills are required, and Fotor's online image crop tool has never been easier and is suitable for every occasion.

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Start Editing

Next, I’ll share the steps of how to crop an image in Fotor:

  1. Open "Fotor's online image crop tool" and upload the image you want to modify.
  2. Drag the corners of the scale diagram to adjust the photo size.
  3. Choose from our selection of pre-determined dimensionsundefined or type the exact measurements in the "Width" and "Height" fields.
  4. Choose a format for your image and save it.
crop an image by fotor crop tool

Conclusion

We have covered a few ways of how to crop an image in Photoshop, from simple cropping to selectionundefined using clipping masksundefined to create a layer to crop and even crop the GIF image. After that, we have also shared an online photo editor Fotor which can crop the image in an easier way without any photoshop skills. Hope this tutorial can help you in any case you have the crop need!