Crop Image 16:9
Crop image 16:9 for a thumbnail, a slide or a desktop: a widescreen frame opens over your photo at the largest size it holds, and you slide it over the part worth keeping.
Drop an image to crop it to 16:9
The 16:9 widescreen frame opens on your picture. Slide it to choose what stays. Or press Ctrl + V to paste one straight from your clipboard. PNG, JPG or WebP, up to 25 MB. Edited in your browser, never uploaded.
A widescreen crop
in the shape of every screen you own.
TVs, monitors, video players and slide decks all settled on 16:9, so a picture in that shape fills them without bars. A sideways phone photo loses a quarter of its height to get there. The frame shows which quarter before anything is cut.
Other crop shapes and sizes
The same crop tool, opened on a different shape or size. Each one starts with its frame already set.
Tools that pair well with this one
All free, all in your browser, no signup.
Why use Piknova?
A true 16:9 crop beats black bars.
What a widescreen cropper should give you, next to the shortcuts that leave a player padding it for you.
Piknova
What you get- Exactly 16:9, so it fills the player edge to edge
- Crops first, then scales, so the scene stays wide
- Runs in your browser, the photo stays on your device
- Full resolution, up to 2x in the export
- Free, no signup, no watermark
Other tools
What you put up with- Close to 16:9, so thin bars show up on the sides
- A typed size that quietly zooms into the middle
- Uploaded and queued before you see the frame
- A smaller copy unless you sign up
- A logo across the thumbnail you meant to publish
Drop, frame it wide, save
Three steps in this browser tab, no account, 25 MB per image.
- 01
Drop the picture
A JPG, PNG or WebP. The widescreen frame opens on it straight away, as large as it fits.
- 02
Slide it to the action
Move the frame up or down to pick the band worth keeping. The dimmed parts are what gets trimmed.
- 03
Apply and download
Press Apply, then download at half, actual or double size, in the format you started with or another.
Step by step
Crop image 16:9 in four steps
The frame is already widescreen when the picture lands. Your only job is picking which band of the photo it keeps.
- Drop the picture: Drag it onto the box at the top of this page, pick it from your files, or paste a screenshot with Ctrl+V. A 16:9 frame opens in the middle, as wide as the picture allows.
- Choose the band: Slide the frame up or down. On a sideways photo the frame already spans the full width, so the only question is how much sky and how much floor.
- Tighten for a close-up: Drag a corner inward to zoom on a face or a product. The frame stays 16:9 at every size.
- Apply and download: Press Apply and pick the export size. Half size is handy when the crop is far bigger than a site needs.
Upright photo? A 16:9 frame on it keeps well under half the picture, a thin horizontal band. Shoot sideways next time, or see the table further down for what each kind of photo gives up.
16:9
wide, locked while you drag
YouTube
Crop image for YouTube thumbnails
A video thumbnail is a 16:9 picture, the same shape as the player it sits in. YouTube's own help page spells out the rest.
| Rule | What YouTube asks for |
|---|---|
| Shape | 16:9 |
| Size | As large as possible, with 3840 x 2160 recommended |
| Smallest width | 640 pixels |
| File type | JPG or PNG |
| File size | Up to 2 MB from the phone app, up to 50 MB from a desktop |
A 12 megapixel phone photo shot sideways crops to 4032 by 2268 at 16:9, a little bigger than the recommended size. Scale it to 3840 wide in the image resizer and the height lands on 2160 exactly.
Posting from your phone? The file has to squeeze under 2 MB, which a 4K JPG often misses. Run it through the compressor with a target size and it keeps its pixels.
The shape
The 16:9 aspect ratio, and why every screen uses it
16:9 means sixteen units across for every nine down, about 1.78 to 1. Every widescreen resolution you have heard of is that shape at a different size.
It was a compromise. In the 1980s Kerns Powers of SMPTE proposed 16:9 as a middle ground between the 4:3 of old televisions and the much wider frames of cinema, and HDTV adopted it.
| Name | Pixels | Where you meet it |
|---|---|---|
| 720p (HD) | 1280 x 720 | Small players, older laptops |
| 1080p (Full HD) | 1920 x 1080 | Most monitors, TVs and screenshots |
| 1440p (QHD) | 2560 x 1440 | Larger desktop monitors |
| 2160p (4K UHD) | 3840 x 2160 | 4K TVs and YouTube's recommended thumbnail |
Doubling a size in both directions keeps the shape, which is why 3840 by 2160 is exactly four 1080p screens. It is also why a 4K crop exported at Half size lands on 1920 by 1080.
Further reading
Slides and desktops
Widescreen crop for slides and wallpapers
PowerPoint and Google Slides both start new decks at 16:9. A photo cropped to that shape fills a slide with no white edges to hide.
- Full-bleed slides: Crop the photo to 16:9 before dropping it into the deck, and it covers the slide exactly instead of spilling off one side.
- Desktop wallpapers: A 16:9 picture fills a 16:9 monitor. On a laptop with a 16:10 screen, the system trims a thin strip from each side to fill the taller display.
- Video frames and title cards: An editing timeline set to 1080p shows a 16:9 still without bars. Crop at the largest size and the editor scales it down cleanly.
For a 16:10 wallpaper, pick Free and type the size yourself. On a sideways 4032 by 3024 phone photo, 4032 by 2520 is the largest 16:10 it holds.
Exact pixels
Crop to 1920x1080 without zooming in
Typing 1920 and 1080 into the crop box feels like the obvious move, and it quietly zooms in. The crop takes a window of exactly that many pixels out of the photo, so the rest of the scene is gone.
- Crop the largest 16:9: Leave the frame as it opened, slide it into place and press Apply.
- Scale it down: Open the result in the image resizer, lock the ratio and set the width to 1920. The height follows to 1080.
- Or halve a 4K crop: Type 3840 by 2160 into the crop, which fits a sideways phone photo, and export at Half size. One tool, a slightly tighter scene.
| Picture | Size | Largest 16:9 crop | Share kept |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phone photo, upright | 3024 x 4032 | 3024 x 1701 px | 42.2% |
| Phone photo, sideways | 4032 x 3024 | 4032 x 2268 px | 75% |
| Camera photo, upright | 4000 x 6000 | 4000 x 2250 px | 37.5% |
| Camera photo, sideways | 6000 x 4000 | 6000 x 3375 px | 84.4% |
| Full HD screenshot | 1920 x 1080 | 1920 x 1080 px | 100% |
Every picture in that table crops to at least 1920 pixels wide, so the resizer only ever scales down. Nothing gets blown up and blurred on the way to Full HD.
16:9 crop: common questions
What people ask when a picture has to fill a screen.
Any size where the width is 16 ninths of the height. 1280 by 720, 1920 by 1080, 2560 by 1440 and 3840 by 2160 are the ones screens use.
The biggest 16:9 from a sideways 12 megapixel phone photo is 4032 by 2268.
By keeping a horizontal band of it. An upright phone photo gives 3024 by 1701 at 16:9, well under half the picture, so slide the band onto the subject.
If the whole upright picture has to show, a crop is the wrong tool. That job needs bars or a blurred background, which this page does not add.
YouTube asks for 16:9 at the largest size you have, recommends 3840 by 2160, and needs at least 640 pixels across. JPG or PNG, under 2 MB from the phone app or 50 MB from a desktop.
Crop the largest 16:9 here, then scale it to 3840 wide if it came out bigger.
1920 by 1080 is one 16:9 size, the most common one. 16:9 is the shape and 1920 by 1080 is a shape plus a size.
A crop at 16:9 can come out at 4032 by 2268 and still scale to 1920 by 1080 with nothing trimmed.
There are no buttons for them, so type the size in Free. On a sideways 4032 by 3024 phone photo, 4032 by 1728 is the largest 21:9.
A phone photo is already 4:3, so the Original button keeps that shape. On a Full HD screenshot, type 1440 by 1080 for 4:3.
Many laptops have 16:10 screens, a little taller than 16:9. To fill one, the system trims a thin strip from each side of the picture.
Keep the subject away from the side edges, or crop to 16:10 by typing the size in Free.
Wide, and edge to edge.
Drop the picture, slide the 16:9 frame over the good part, and download it at full resolution. Free, with no signup.