Drag the corners/anchors of the rectangular shape of the bounding box to crop your image precisely how you want (as long as you wish to crop only a rectangle).

Then click the Crop Image button - comparable to a mask button - on the upper toolbar. Select your image with the Selection Tool. But this cropping option is only available for Illustrator CC users. The Many Ways to Crop an Image Cropping an Image in Illustrator CC by Using the Crop ButtonĪs the title suggests, this is the easiest crop option for an image in Adobe Illustrator CC. In contrast, raster images are cropped into a new shape that cannot be altered unless you crop again. You must remember that vectors offer much more freedom when cropped, as they remain editable. But since Creative Cloud, Illustrator offers a simple crop tool to crop raster images.

Remember the Photoshop / Illustrator combo we mentioned before - using Photoshop to crop raster images and Illustrator to crop vector-based images? Pretty impractical if you ask us. Cropping a raster image is not the same process as cropping a vector shape. Okay, one last thing before we get to the point. The Difference Between Cropping a Raster Image and a Vector Shape We’ll explain every image crop feature below. You can use various methods depending on your needs. Do you want to crop a raster image or a vector image? Do you want to show a part of the image without cutting anything (aka non-destructive cropping) or remove the trimmed parts forever (destructive cropping)? There are a couple of ways to get around it. To name some of the most common reasons for wanting to crop an image. Usually, you’d want to crop to improve framing, isolate the subject matter from its background, fit graphics and textures to specific shapes, or change the aspect ratio of the original file. When cropping, the primary goal is to remove unwanted areas from an image. Are you feeling confused, or do you feel like you could’ve discovered how to crop without reading an entire software manual about it? Let’s find out in this step-by-step tutorial, shall we? Image source: Understanding What You Want to Achieve We’ll also explain the difference between cropping a raster (pixel-based) image and a vector image.Īnd ultimately, we will showcase how other design software apps, like Vectornator, compare with Adobe Illustrator in providing an enjoyable cropping workflow. This article will take you on a journey explaining Illustrator's different cropping options. When working with raster graphics, designers switched between Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to crop images. We’re not surprised since veteran Adobe users know the cropping feature was recently added to the Adobe Illustrator features roaster. We’ll also explain the difference between cropping a raster (pixel-based) image and vector graphics.Ĭropping in Adobe Illustrator seems to be a bit of a confusing topic.

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