No matter how adept you are at photography or how much time you take to compose your photos in-camera, sometimes it becomes essential to crop some photos of yours with editors or built-right apps. The reasons to do this could be many. You might want a different kind of look for your image when seeing it on a bigger screen, or you may just need to crop a photo to post it on a social media platform like Instagram. It is imperative to understand how to crop pictures on Mac. This is a versatile tool that can come in handy in many cases. Having unwanted objects in your images is another big reason to crop them, which may happen if you took the photo without having the time to properly compose it. We’ll show you how to do cropping quickly and easily.
Processing a photo you’ve already taken is a common process for the user. Often we need to remove someone in the background or foreground, or just crop a piece that doesn’t make any sense. And if you have a Mac, editing images can be much easier than on a small iPhone screen. If you absolutely have no idea how to crop an image on Mac, then let’s figure it out together right now.
Things to Remember While Cropping
Cropping an image is possibly the easiest thing one can do with any number of photo editors, but there are some important aspects that one should know of before going ahead and cutting out parts of their photos. To make crop images on Mac really right, it is important to follow a few rules. It is not complicated at all and you can figure it out quickly enough.
Be mindful of the aspect ratio that your final image will have. The aspect ratio is a very important factor in this process. It is better to crop your images in one of the standard aspect ratios so that they look natural even after being cropped. This not only depends on the resolution of your image but also on what you are trying to show in the photo. Some photos look better in a square composition or rectangle, others look better in a widescreen view.
Do not crop more than your image’s resolution allows. A camera’s megapixel number is not a definitive testament to its image quality, but it does tell you how much you can crop into your photos without turning them into a mushy mess. So, how to crop pictures on Mac?
How to Crop Photos on a MacBook
Apple’s MacBook laptops are by far some of the most preferred ones when it comes to photographers. Their stability and large number of impressive photo editing apps make them a great choice for enthusiasts and professional photographers alike. This is a great option for a simple keyboard shortcut. If you also use a MacBook or MacBook Pro for your image editing needs, here’s how you can easily crop your images the way you want:
Use the Built-In Apps
First and foremost, Apple’s own built-in applications come to mind when talking about image cropping on a MacBook. Simply open your image in Preview, make a selection on your image and navigate to Tools – Crop. You will quickly find the right option in the tools menu. Your image will be cropped instantly, keeping the areas you selected in the previous step and removing all else.
Apple’s new Photos app is also a pretty impressive image editor which is built into every device. Other than boasting RAW editing capabilities and features like color correction, it also can crop your images and save results to iCloud. It allows you to straighten your images as well while cropping the extra portions automatically. You can also manually crop and straighten your images if you so wish. Now you will have fewer questions about how to crop images on Mac OS X.
Use Photoshop for Deeper Control
You can crop your images in Adobe Photoshop if you want a little more control over the result. Cropping an image is simple; all you have to do is make your selection after clicking on the Crop Tool and pressing Enter. Just click on the desired option in the toolbar. You can type in a custom aspect ratio, change the grid that overlays on the selection, and alter the image resolution after cropping as well.
Use Luminar Neo for the Best Balance
While the original version of Photoshop does give you full control over your images while cropping, it’s safe to say that using such a heavy program might be overkill if all you need to do is quickly crop your image or just resize it. For the best balance between ease of use and professional-level options, use Luminar Neo by Skylum. It gives you easy tools for cropping your photos, along with multiple aspect ratios to get the image you want. You can also straighten your photos while cropping and manually enter whatever aspect ratio you wish to use. Modern AI-based photo editors have fairly advanced functionality.
There are many scenarios in which you might want to crop your images, and there are many software edit programs you can use on your MacBook Pro to do so. Just remember that, unless required for creative purposes, a cropped image that looks ‘cropped’ doesn’t always give the best results. When cropping, you can be guided by the grid with blue dots. Keep in mind the importance of the aspect ratio your images are being cropped at and the overall composition of your resulting images, and you’ll be good to go. Always pay attention to markup.
In conclusion
It is not always the case that a photograph in its original form can attract, and engage the viewer, but it is worth properly cropping the photo – to remove all the unnecessary, distracting details, and the picture creates a completely different impression! Here are some simple photo cropping tips for Mac users:
- Crop to save space. Using a photo banner (meaning not an ad banner) is a good way to decorate a website or blog. But how do you use such a small piece of space? By cutting out a very small portion of the photo! You’ll be surprised at how much such a small piece of imagery can show. Сircular shape cropping looks very original.
- Crop portraits at eye level. To make the subject eye-to-eye with the viewer, cropping should be guided by eye level, which is about 2/5 of the height, counting from the top edge of the image. How to crop on Mac, if we are dealing with a portrait? Due to the fact that distant objects appear higher in the visible area, the eye level should be raised when giving the image a close-up view.
- Cut back and remove unwanted things. Photos taken in everyday life often contain things you don’t need (such as unknown people in the background). The first rule of cropping is to get rid of anything that is useless to the composition. Compact, focused, straighten, and irresistible. For example, a well and simply cropped photo tell the story of friendship and understanding.
- Play with the horizon level. It’s very easy to miss a slightly tilted horizon, especially when another tilted object is thrown over it. In this photo, the water should be level. How to crop photos on Mac in this case? If water is present in the frame, imagine a bowl of soup, and don’t spill it. In these situations, changing the level requires cropping all four sides of the image. A bold, artistic slant can add energy to a composition, which is especially effective in photos with clear, straight lines.
- Cropping up to tell a story and get the photo you want. Different distances tell different stories. For example, we see a baseball lying in the dirt, completely uninteresting; you take the ball in your hand and throw it. However, by giving the ball a close-up, the story changes. This is another reason to learn how to crop on Macbook. You see the skin, the dirt, the seam, the rust. They fill the picture, activating your senses. You can feel the ball in your hand, hear the crack of the bat, and the roar of the crowd, you can touch the history of the game. Use magnification and you’ll be surprised at the result.
So, we told you how to crop a downloaded picture on Mac and what rules to follow when doing so. Now you will not have any difficulties and you will be able to perform this simple task not only quickly, but also in the best possible way. Don’t forget that the Luminar Neo has an easy-to-use menu bar and many editing features.