How to Crop an Image with Microsoft Paint

Written by Jack Lloyd

Last Updated: March 4, 2021 Tested

This wikiHow teaches you how to trim a photo using Microsoft Paint.

Steps

Doing this will prompt a drop-down menu.
This option is toward the middle of the drop-down menu.

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It's beside a blue icon depicting a paint palette.
Select is in the "Image" section of the Home tab at the top of the "Paint" window.
It's the first option in the drop-down menu here.
6
Click and drag over the image. Doing so will drag a rectangular dotted line over the image; anything inside of the dotted line will remain when you crop the image.
- If you're trying to remove a border from a photo, the best way to do so is to click in the top-left corner and drag diagonally into the bottom-right corner (or similar).
- To remove the dotted line and start over, click anywhere outside of the area surrounded by dotted lines.
It's at the top of the "Image" section of options and to the right of Select . Clicking this button will remove everything outside of the dotted lines, leaving only the part of the image that's inside.

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Community Q&A

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Question

How do I make it a JPEG? I keep trying and it won't upload.

Community Answer

Go to: File>Save As, then where it says "Save as type:" use the drop down menu to select JPEG. Name your file accordingly and then save to wherever you want it.

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Question

How do I remove the white around the edges if I am using the free-form selection for cropping, and the cropped image is round or oddly shaped?

Community Answer

Under the dropdown for the "select" tool, choose "transparent selection." If this does not make the white edges transparent, use the color-picker tool and right click the white area so that the exact shade goes into Color 2 (background color). Note the "transparent selection" only works if the whole background is the exact same shade and won't work well if there are some slightly darker patches around the edges.

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Question

How do you reduce the kilobytes of the image?

Community Answer

You can make the image smaller in Paint. Reducing the size of the image will compromise its quality to some extent.

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Tips

After prompting the drop-down menu below Select , you can also click Free-form selection to draw a crop area free-hand (e.g., not a rectangle).

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Warnings

Whenever your image is selected, be careful not to hit Delete . If you accidentally delete your image, click the backward-facing arrow at the top of the page to undo your mistake.

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How to Crop an Image with Microsoft Paint

Steps

Community Q&A

Tips

Warnings

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