Macs have apps that are useful for viewing images, photos, and documents like PDFs. The app is called “Preview.app”, but “Preview.app” is not just a navigation app. Image editing, especially cropping.
[Mac]How to crop an image with Preview.app
Many PC users choose Mac over Windows for a variety of reasons. There are many things, such as being able to program iOS, having better security, being able to work with iPhone and iPad and having a high definition display.
Other reasons include the excellent operability and ease of data control, the ability to use famous fonts, and the clear sound quality.
These advantages of Macs are important when editing videos, so many people choose Macs as their video editing computer. But Macs are popular computers for image and video editing.
Some Mac users who are serious about image editing purchase specific image editing software.
Of course, there are video editing software that can be used for free, but the functions are limited, so multifunctional and stable paid image editing software is often used. The problem is that paid image editing software for Mac is expensive.
Paid image editing software for Mac includes “Photo Director (6,480 yen/year)”, “Photo Shop (28,776 yen/year)”, “Lightroom (12,936 yen/year)”, “Affinity Photo (3,060 yen) ”, “Pixelmator Pro ($19.99)”, but they are all expensive.
However, even if you don’t buy expensive Mac-compatible image editing software, you can use the apps that come pre-installed on your Mac for basic image editing. It’s an app called “Preview.app”.
In this article, I will show you how to crop an image using Mac’s Preview.app. Before introducing how to use Mac’s “Preview.app”, there are three preparations I would like you to check in advance, so let’s start with that point.
・Confirm in advance
The first thing I want you to check before cutting an image with the Mac’s “Preview.app” is if you have created and saved a backup of the image file.
If you make a mistake while cropping an image, you may not be able to restore the image to its original state, so copy and save the image file. Another thing to check is if the image file you want to crop can be opened with Preview.app.
If you can’t open the file with “Preview.app”, you can’t crop the image. Also, even if you open an image file with “Preview.app”, you cannot crop the image unless the necessary cropping toolbar or markup toolbar is displayed.
Actually launch your Mac’s Preview.app and see if you can see everything you need to crop your image. There are other things to check before cropping an image with Mac’s Preview.app. Image cropping is not possible with files in PDF format.
If the image you want to change is in PDF format, change the format from PDF to PNG before starting work. I will introduce how to convert PFG format image files to PNG format below, so please refer to it as needed.
Click “Finder” in the Dock at the bottom of your Mac desktop screen
When the “Finder” screen appears, select and click “Applications” from the menu on the left side of the screen. All the apps installed on your Mac will appear on the right side of the screen, so select and click “Preview”
“Preview.app” will launch, so browse for the location where you saved the PDF file from the menu on the left of the screen and click when you find it. Here select “Desktop”
Select and click the PDF file image
The image of the selected PDF file will appear, so after checking it, click “Open”
When the image of the selected PDF file appears, click “File” in the menu bar
A drop down menu will appear, select and click “Export”
When the “Export” screen appears, click “Format”
From the drop-down menu that appears, select and click “PNG”
After confirming the settings, click “Save”
The image that has become a “PNG” file will be displayed on the desktop screen, so let’s check it
There’s one more thing I want you to check before cropping an image with Mac’s Preview.app. It’s the background color setting of the “Preview.app” window.
Cropping a portion of the image will paste it into the window, but the cropped image may not be visible if the background doesn’t match the cropped image. By default, the window background is set to gray.
Depending on the color of the image you want to crop and extract, it may be preferable to select a different color for the window background color instead of gray, then change it if necessary. Let’s see how to change the background color of the “Preview.app” window.
Click “Finder” in the Dock to launch it, select “Applications” from the left menu, and select and click “Preview” from the apps displayed on the right side of the screen. When “Preview.app” launches, click “Preview” in the menu bar
When the drop-down menu appears, select and click “Preferences”
When the “General” screen appears, click “Window Background” in the menu
The “Color” screen will appear, so select the desired color by moving the “⊕” displayed in the center of the circular color with the mouse.
Click the second icon at the top of the “Color” screen to bring up a screen where you can adjust the brightness of the background color with a toggle, then set it to your desired brightness.
Click the third icon at the top of the “Color” screen to bring up a screen where you can locate the background color, then select the desired background color
Click the fourth icon at the top of the “Color” screen to switch to the “Spectrum” screen, then select the desired color by moving “⊕” with the mouse.
Click the fifth icon at the top of the “Colors” screen and you’ll be taken to the “Pencils” screen, so if you’d like to set the background color to a smoky pencil color, select the color you want.
