Why Crop Photos and Elements in Canva
One of the most basic actions you can take when editing an image is to crop it. If you don’t know what “crop” is, it’s when you want to focus on a part of the image or edit a part of it, basically cropping the image to fit your needs.
Let’s say you have a photo of a product that you’ve taken and want to use for a marketing campaign, and you’re designing a social media post to promote that product. If you don’t want any additional visuals in the background or want to focus the image more, cropping is an easy technique to get the desired result.
In Canva you can crop using different methods, but the easiest is to manipulate and edit the image itself without any frills. You can also crop using ready-made frames available in the library.
How to Crop an Image on Canva
Here’s the first technique you can use to crop an image in Canva. It’s easy, so let’s do it!
Follow these steps to learn how to crop images found in your projects in Canva:
Step 1: First, log into Canva, and on the home screen open a new or existing project to work on.
Step 2: Just as you would add another design element to your project, navigate to the left side of the screen to the main toolbox and click on the Elements tab. Click on the visual image you want to use in your project and drag it onto the canvas.
Step 3: Once your visualization is placed on the canvas, click the element, image, or video you want to crop. You will see an additional toolbar appear above the canvas with options to crop.
Step 4: Click the Crop button on that toolbar or double-click the graphic to make the crop handles appear on your image. (These are the white lines in the corners of the graph.)
Click and drag all the crop handles to customize what you want your project to look like.
You will be able to see the full original image as a more transparent part of the image before completing this action, and you can move this crop handle again according to your needs.
Step 5: Click the Done button on the toolbar (or you can click outside the graph to complete this action). You should be able to see the newly cropped graphic on your canvas!
If you are not satisfied with the way you cropped the image or want to revise it at any time, just click on the image and follow these steps again. You can always edit your work!
How to Crop a Photo Using Frames
Another method you can use to crop your graphic in Canva is to add a photo or video to the frame. (You can check out our other post about adding frames to your project in a more basic sense!)
Follow these steps to learn how to crop by adding borders to your project in Canva:
Step 1: The same way you add other design elements to your project, open the main toolbox on the left side of the screen and click the Elements tab.
Step 2: To find available frames in the library, you can scroll down in the Items folder until you find the Frames label, or you can search for them in the search box by entering the relevant keyword to see all the options.
Step 3: Select the framework you want to use for your project. When you’re ready, click the frame or drag and drop the frame onto your canvas. You can then adjust the canvas size or position and change the frame orientation at any time.
Step 4: To fill the frame with an image, navigate back to the left side of the screen to the main toolbox and locate the graphic you want to use either in the Elements tab or via the Uploads folder if you’re using a file you’ve uploaded to Canva.
Step 5: Click on the graphic of your choice and drag and drop it onto the canvas frame. By clicking on the graphic again, you will be able to adjust which part of the visual you want to see when you click back into the frame.
If you want to display another part of the image that has been attached to the frame, simply click on it and move the image by dragging it into the frame.
To crop an image, click the image you want to edit and navigate to the top toolbar and click the “crop” button. Then you can take a corner of your image and drag it to adjust which part of the image you see.
You can also crop your image by attaching it to a pre-made frame found in the library and adjusting the image inside.