Crop, resize, and save an image with Image Converter

Image Converter crops, resizes, compresses and converts images. It is not a general photo editor — for layered designs, drawing, or text overlays, use Design instead.

Image Converter has three pages:

• /image-converter — Single image, covered here. Crop one picture by eye and convert it.
• /image-converter/batch — Batch. The same rules applied to many images at once. See Convert many images at once with Batch.
• /image-converter/converted — Converted images. Everything you have converted.

Choose an image

From /image-converter, choose an image three ways:

• Choose from Magpie — pick anything already in your image library.
• Upload image — pick a file from your device without adding it to your library first.
• Drag and drop an image file anywhere on the page.

The image opens in the editing workspace. Nothing is changed until you save or download a result — the original is never modified in place.

The native mobile app supports one image at a time. Choose an image from your Magpie library, or use Edit in Image Converter from a native image-library preview, or stage a photo from the device, then set a size preset or custom dimensions, crop ratio and rectangle, fit mode, rotation, flips, format, quality and maximum file size. Add output presets to create several results from one source, then share them as a ZIP or save them to the image library. The native batch workflow applies the same rules to several library or device images and can share a ZIP or save the completed images to the library. On mobile, drag the crop rectangle to reposition it; use the pixel fields for an exact rectangle. Drag the crop corners to resize it. The full desktop crop workspace remains on the website.

Crop, rotate and flip

Everything that changes what is framed sits in the toolbar directly above the picture. It is above rather than below because rotating a tall or wide image changes how much room the picture takes, and controls underneath would move away from your pointer between one click and the next.

Drag the crop frame's edges or corners, or drag inside it to move it. The X, Y, W and H fields beside it hold the same rectangle in pixels, so you can also type an exact crop, and they update as you drag.

Crop offers Original, Free, common ratios (Square 1:1, 4:3, 3:2, 16:9, 9:16, 4:5), and a Custom ratio for anything else, such as 5:7. Reset crop puts the frame back around the whole picture.

The rotate-left, rotate-right, flip-horizontal and flip-vertical buttons are in the same toolbar. Your crop turns and mirrors with the picture, so it keeps framing the same content. A photo's stored orientation (from a phone's camera) is corrected automatically when it loads, so you should not need to rotate an image just to see it right-way-up.

Size

Size has three kinds of answer:

• Original size — the crop comes out at its own pixels. This is where the page starts, and choosing it again clears Width and Height, so it is also how you get back after trying something else.
• Custom size — you set Width and Height in pixels yourself. Typing in either field selects this on its own.
• A preset — Square, Portrait, Story/Vertical, HD, 4K, Web Large, Web Medium, Thumbnail or Avatar.

A preset that has a shape sets the crop ratio to match, and says so underneath. That is deliberate: the crop and the output size are then the same shape, so the page never shows you two different ratios at once. Changing the crop ratio afterwards switches Size to Custom size, because the preset is no longer what is being produced.

Lock ratio is on by default: changing Width updates Height to match, and reshaping the crop moves Height with it, so the size fields never go on describing a shape that is no longer being cut.

If the width and height you asked for really are a different shape from the crop, one more field appears — The size and the crop are different shapes — because only then is there anything to decide:

• Crop to fill — the output fills the exact dimensions; extra content is cropped away.
• Fit inside, add a background — the whole image stays visible and a background colour fills the rest.
• Resize proportionally — the image is scaled without forcing an exact width and height.

Asking for dimensions larger than the source gives you those dimensions. Enlarging cannot add detail the original did not have, so the result looks softer than the same picture shot at that size.

Format and quality

Format carries an i button; hover or focus it for what that format is good for. See JPEG vs PNG vs WebP vs AVIF for the longer version.

Quality offers Maximum, High, Medium, and Small file — each maps to the right setting for whichever format you picked, since "high quality" means a different number to a JPEG encoder than to an AVIF one.

A maximum file size

Turn on Set a maximum file size and give a value in KB or MB. This is an upper bound, not an exact target: Image Converter tries a sequence of quality settings (and, if you allow it, dimensions) and keeps the best result at or under your limit, so you do not have to guess a quality percentage. Quality is hidden while a limit is set, because the limit is choosing it for you.

If lowering the quality is not enough decides what happens next:

• Reduce the dimensions too — the image is made smaller as well. Choose this when the only requirement is that the file must upload successfully.
• Keep the dimensions — dimensions never change, even if that means the limit cannot be reached.

If Image Converter cannot get under your limit without dropping below a usable quality floor (or, for PNG, without shrinking further than makes sense), it says so rather than producing a badly degraded image, and suggests allowing smaller dimensions or switching format.

Save or download

• Download converts the image and saves it straight to your device.
• Save copy to Magpie adds the result to your image library as a normal image. The original is untouched, and the new copy appears anywhere you use the image picker.

Original and Result under the picture show the dimensions and file size before and after, so you can see what a conversion produced.

Several files from one image

Add another size or format produces more than one file from the same picture — a website hero, a square social crop and a thumbnail, say — in one pass. They appear in a Files to produce list.

Each file is named by the filename it will produce, so there is nothing extra to name. Each has its own crop, size, format and quality; rotate and flip correct the source itself, so they are shared by all of them. Click a file in the list to edit it, and the crop frame, size fields and format switch to that file's own settings.

Once there is more than one, Download becomes Download all (zip) and Save copy to Magpie becomes Save all to Magpie. A file that cannot be produced (an unsupported combination, say) shows the reason on its own row and does not stop the others.

Converted images

/image-converter/converted lists everything you have converted, newest first, with a Download and Save to Magpie action for anything not yet saved.

A result you never save to Magpie can be downloaded again for 48 hours; after that its file is removed and the row shows File removed. Saving a copy to Magpie keeps the original untouched and stores the result alongside your other images, subject to your normal storage plan.

iPhone (HEIC) photos

Image Converter and Batch accept HEIC and HEIF photos, such as those taken on an iPhone. Magpie converts each one to a JPEG when it is uploaded, and that JPEG is what Image Converter works from. Photos over 50 megapixels cannot be converted. Smaller photos with an edge over 8000 pixels are scaled down to fit.

If a conversion fails, or a saved copy does not appear in your image library, Contact support.