How To Crop Photos on Windows with Windows Photo Editors

Everyone loves cool photos whether for personal use or for commercial use. Thankfully, these days there are lots of photo editors to that help polish up images the way we want them to be. Cropping is one way of spicing up those photos and it never seems to grow old. It is not only one of the simplest ways to resize images if you want to include them in documents, you can also crop to eliminate any distracting parts from photos. Now, how do you crop photos in your windows PC? Well, there are some marvelous third party apps that will do the job if you are photo savvy but wait, there are some free options as well! In fact, we are going to take you through how to crop photos on your windows using in built apps and one cool third party app. Let’s delve in now.

How to crop a photo on Windows with Paint

Using windows is one of the most popular and free ways of editing photos of windows. Well, it’s thanks to the fact that the Paint app is built into virtually all or rather, common windows versions-windows 7, 8 and 10. Moreover, the paint app is super easy to use and anyone-even the novice can edit an image with it. So, how do you crop your photos using paint?

The first thing you want to do is open your image with paint app. There are two ways do this, right click on the image and open with paint or launch paint then click on File>Open.

Now, there are two ways of cropping your photo. You can crop your photo into a rectangular format or you could go for free-form selection:

Crop a Photo As a Rectangle on Your PC

For the rectangular crop, click on Select and ensure the icon displayed is rectangular in shape-if not just toggle and select rectangular selection.

Then click on the image and drag your cursor to select the area you want to crop. You can always adjust the rectangular guidelines to cover the exact areas you want to be covered.

Once you are satisfied, simply click on the Crop button in the menu.

The last step is to save the new photo. Click on File>Save As to do this.

Crop a Photo As a Free Form Selection on Your PC

Cropping as a free-from selection on paint is more or less the same as cropping as a rectangle. The only difference is that you will click on the black arrow under Select and click on free-form selection

Then you can select the area you want to crop by dragging the mouse through the path. Once you are happy with your selection, click on Crop and save your file your desired location.

How to crop a photo on Windows with Photo Gallery

If you are running Windows vista, 7 or 8 then you can use Windows photo gallery to edit your photos. Follows these steps to crop your photos using the Photo Gallery app:

Step 1: Launch the Windows Photo Gallery App

First, launch the Photo Gallery app. Click on Start and search for photo gallery. From the list that appears, find Photo Gallery and click on it

Step 2: Find Your Photo

Once you have launched the app, you can look for the photo you want to edit and double click on it. This will take you to the editing mode.

Step 3: Crop Photo

In the tool bar find and click on the Crop icon and the crop grid will appear. Now you can simply resize the grid frame to cover the areas you want in the new photo. It’s that simple.

How to crop a photo on Windows with Photo Manager

The other free option for cropping photos in windows is to use Windows Photo Manager but this only comes with Microsoft office suite from 2003 to 2010. If you have it then here are the steps to crop your photo with the app:

Step 1: Open Your Photo With Windows Photo Manager

Simply right click on the photo you want to edit and open with the photo manager. If the app isn’t on your list, just click on Choose Default Program> Other Programs and select Photo Manager

Step 2: Crop Photo

After opening the photo on Windows Photo Manager, click on Edit Pictures

A toolbox will appear on the right where you will click on crop. Adjust the crop settings and the crop area to fit in with your preference, then click on OK and you are done!

A better way to crop photos on Windows

These free tools are great if you are handling small projects but if you are looking for a better way to crop and edit your photos then you will need to go for a third party app with the features you need.

One such tool is Fotophire, a photo editing app tailored for personal use and businesses. The beauty with this tool is that it has a variety of crop presets. The other amazing feature is that you also apply changes to several photos at once.

How To Crop Photos Using Wondershare Fotophire

Step 1: Install and Launch Wondershare Fotophire

Download Wondershare Fotophireand and install it on your windows PC. You can try the tool for a limited amount of time but you will only have access to limited features. After installing, launch the software and click on Photo Editor.

Step 2: Import Photo

Import the photo you want to edit by clicking on Open.

Step 3: Crop Photo

Now to crop your photo, click on the Crop Module and pick the proportion templates that suits you: crop with fixed ratio or custom ratio

Last but not least, save the image, print it or share it directly from the app.

Final Thoughts

Now that you know how to make good use of free windows apps to edit your photos, the ball is in your court now! Start playing around with the tools and if you want to go pro, then Wondershare Fotophire is one fantastic tool to jump into. Enjoy!!