Crop Image to 16:9 – Widescreen Photos for Thumbnails and Slides

A ratio of 16:9 means that for every 16 units of width there are 9 units of height. It is the standard shape of widescreen video, most computer monitors, laptop screens and televisions, which is why so many things ask for it.

The ratio only describes the shape. The sharpness depends on how many pixels the picture has, so a 16:9 picture can be small or large.

Each of these has the same shape and a different number of pixels:

• 1280 × 720 pixels, often called HD or 720p. A widely used size for video thumbnails.
• 1920 × 1080 pixels, Full HD or 1080p. The usual size for slides and many website banners.
• 2560 × 1440 pixels, often called QHD or 1440p, for sharper monitors.
• 3840 × 2160 pixels, 4K, for very large or very sharp screens. Only use it if your picture has enough pixels.

A 16:9 shape is wide and short. If your photo is a vertical phone picture, the frame covers only a strip across the middle, and the rest is cut away. A photo taken sideways, in landscape, loses much less.

If a lot of the picture goes missing, the strip may also have fewer pixels than you need. The sidebar shows the size of the crop, so you can see this before you save. The tool cannot add detail that was never in the photo.

• Put the main subject near the middle and leave some space around it, so it is not cut off by a different crop later.
• For a thumbnail, leave room for a title, and keep faces away from the corners, where players and apps often draw their own labels and buttons.
• Start from your original photo, not from a screenshot or a picture that was already compressed.
• Look at the result at full size before you upload it, especially around faces and text.