Cropping a Photo Using Free Image Editing Software – The Gimp
Let me start by saying that cropping a picture is one of the most basic photo editing tasks and it can be done with practically any image editor, with some being harder than others. There are plenty of free image editors on the web now a days, however, The Gimp is as powerful as it gets; it is an excellent image editing software, comparable to Photoshop that can perform very complex photographic jobs. In this tutorial I will demonstrate how to crop a photo using The Gimp. This tutorial is not only designed to teach you how to crop, but it is also a good introduction to this powerful image editor.
Instructions
If you do not already have it, download The Gimp for Windows or The Gimp for Mac and install it. If you have Ubuntu Linux, you can install it using Synaptic.
Open your image in The Gimp. To do this, you can open The Gimp and drag the picture into it, or click on “File” and “Open“.
Click on the “Rectangle Select Tool“.
Select the area you want to crop by clicking and holding the button of the mouse on one of the corners of the area to be cropped. Then drag the mouse across the area, creating a rectangle selection box. Once you have covered the area you want to crop, release the mouse button.
Next, on the top menu, click on “Image” and then click on “Crop to Selection“.
The image will then be cropped to the area you selected.
Save the final cropped picture by clicking on “File” and “Save“. If you want to leave the original picture intact, do a “Save as” and rename the picture, so that the original one will not get overwritten.
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Other “The Gimp” tutorials:
How to Make a Transparent Image.