Resize Image

Three ways to resize, for three different reasons

Dimensions is for when someone has given you a number — an upload form that demands 1080 pixels wide, a template with a fixed slot. Type the width and the height follows automatically, because Lock aspect ratio is on by default.

Percentage is for when you just want it smaller: the slider runs from 10% to 200% and scales both sides together. It is the quickest way to halve an oversized photo without doing arithmetic.

Preset covers the sizes people most often come here hunting for — HD 1280×720, Full HD 1920×1080, 4K 3840×2160, Social Square 1080×1080, Instagram Portrait 1080×1350, Twitter 1200×675 and Facebook 1200×630. If your target is one of those, pick it rather than typing the numbers.

Keep the aspect ratio locked unless you mean it

This is where resizing goes wrong. Aspect ratio is the relationship between width and height, and if you change one without the other, the picture stretches — faces widen, circles turn into ovals. It looks subtly wrong in a way people notice without being able to say why.

So the lock is on by default and should usually stay on. Unlocking it is for the rare case where you deliberately want a different shape and do not mind the distortion. If you need a specific shape without distortion — a landscape photo that has to become a square, for instance — the answer is not to unlock the ratio but to crop, which removes the parts that do not fit rather than squashing everything into place.

Making something bigger rarely works

The percentage slider goes to 200%, and it is worth being clear about what that does. Enlarging cannot invent detail that was never captured; it spreads the existing pixels over a larger area, and the result looks soft. Small increases are usually acceptable, but if you need a genuinely larger image, going back to the original file at full resolution will always beat enlarging a small copy.

Related tools

Compress Image reduces file size after resizing, which is the usual next step for anything going on a website. Crop Image changes the shape without distorting it, and Profile Photo Maker produces the square and circular sizes profile pictures need.