Resize Image

How to use the Resize Image

1. 1

   Drop a photo into the box or click to choose one. Its current size in pixels appears at the top.

2. 2

   Pick how to resize: Pixels, Percentage, cm / inches, or Presets, and enter the size you need.

3. 3

   If the new shape differs from your photo, choose Crop to fill, Fit with border or Stretch.

4. 4

   Choose the format and quality, check the preview and file size, then press Download.

Four ways to set the size

Pixels is the direct route when a website states exact numbers, like 1200 × 800. With the chain icon locked, typing a width fills in the matching height so the photo keeps its proportions. Click the icon again to set both numbers independently.

Percentage scales the whole photo. 50% of a 4000 × 3000 picture is 2000 × 1500, which cuts the pixel count to a quarter and the file size by a similar amount. Quick buttons cover 25%, 50%, 75%, 150% and 200%, and the slider handles everything from 1% to 200%.

cm / inches is for printing and for forms that describe the photo in physical units. Enter the width and height in centimetres, millimetres or inches and a DPI value, and the tool works out the pixels. Presets hold the sizes people ask for most often, listed in the table further down.

Centimetres, inches and DPI made simple

A digital photo only has pixels. Centimetres come in when it is printed, and DPI (dots per inch) is the link between the two: pixels = size in inches × DPI. One inch is 2.54 cm, so a 3.5 cm wide photo at 300 DPI needs 3.5 ÷ 2.54 × 300 = 413 pixels.

300 DPI is the usual standard for photo prints and is the default here. At that density, a 10 × 15 cm print needs 1181 × 1772 pixels. Some forms ask for 200 DPI, which needs a third fewer pixels for the same printed size. Lowering the DPI does not make the print smaller; it makes each printed centimetre use fewer pixels.

When you resize in cm / inches or use the passport presets, the DPI is written into the JPG or PNG file as well. Photo studios, print software and some portal checkers read that value, so the file opens at the right physical size instead of the 72 or 96 DPI many programs assume. WebP files have no standard place for this, so the value isn't stored there.

Preset sizes and what they produce

Requirements change from time to time and differ between offices, so treat these as starting points and check the current instructions for your application. Use cm / inches with your own numbers if a form asks for something different, for example 3.5 × 4.5 cm at 200 DPI.

When the new shape doesn't match your photo

A phone photo is usually 4:3 or 16:9, while a passport photo is 7:9 and a DP is square. Whenever the size you ask for has a different shape from the original, three options appear.

• Crop to fill trims equal amounts from both sides (or top and bottom) and keeps the centre. This is the right choice for passport photos and profile pictures, provided your face is roughly in the middle of the original.
• Fit with border keeps the entire photo and fills the leftover space with the background colour you pick. Good for product shots, posters and YouTube thumbnails made from tall images.
• Stretch forces the photo into the new shape. It distorts faces and text, so only use it for small corrections of a few pixels.

If the crop cuts off the top of someone's head, crop the photo by hand in your gallery app first, so the face sits in the centre, then come back and use the preset.

Format, quality and file size

Save as lets you keep the original format or switch to JPG, PNG or WebP. JPG is right for photos and for official uploads. PNG keeps hard edges and transparency, which suits screenshots, logos and signatures, but photos saved as PNG are several times larger. WebP is the smallest of the three and works well on websites and in chat apps.

For JPG and WebP a quality slider appears, set to 90% to start with. The preview and the file size update a moment after every change, so you can watch the size fall as you lower it. Resizing alone usually cuts the size a lot: halving both sides leaves a quarter of the pixels. If you need a hard limit like under 50 KB, resize here first and then use our Compress Image tool for the final squeeze.

Making a photo bigger than the original is possible, but it only adds pixels, not detail, so the result can look soft. The tool reminds you when that is happening. Very large outputs, beyond 16,000 pixels on a side, are blocked because browsers can't draw them reliably.