How to Crop in Adobe Illustrator with 3 Methods

Adobe Illustrator is one of the most well-known vector graphics software applications. Graphic designers, illustrators and other creative professionals often use Adobe Illustrator to make logos, icons, illustrations, typography, and more complex creations like flyers and website mock-ups. Creatives often choose Adobe Illustrator for its high-quality text tools, global editing ability, and advanced vector graphics editing ability, including cropping.

You might be here because you’re looking to master the basics of Adobe Illustrator and cropping is one skill you need to better understand. Cropping can be helpful if you’re digitizing a sketch and want to remove unwanted elements from your final product or adjusting a photo to fit within a specific shape like a star or triangle.

Is it Easy to Crop in Illustrator?

Learning how to crop in Adobe Illustrator doesn’t have to be complicated, especially if you have some level of experience with the application already. As long as you’re feeling ready to learn and make your way through each step slowly, you can easily crop any image. Even if you haven’t worked in Illustrator before, any digital editing experience you have can come in handy. If you know how to crop a video on TikTok or a photo within your phone’s photo album, you’ll have technical and artistic skills like understanding balance and proportion.

3 Methods to Crop in Adobe Illustrator

The most basic way to crop an object in Adobe Illustrator is to use the “Crop Image” tool, which you’ll find in the Properties window. This cropping tool is similar to the tools you might find in other photo editing apps. You’ll simply adjust the widget corners and edge handles to remove any unwanted parts of your image. Any changes you make with the “Crop Image” tool will be discarded and you won’t be able to recover it so crop with caution.

If you want more flexibility, learn how to crop a photo in Illustrator by using a clipping mask, opacity mask or using the artboard option while exporting.

1. Using a Clipping Mask

Adobe Illustrator is open to a white artboard with an image of a bridge on it. A red hexagon sits on top of the bridge image. The “Object” menu is open and the mouse is hovering over the “Make” button under “Clipping Mask.” — Still from Skillshare Class Adobe Illustrator 2023 MasterClass by Khalil Sediqi Once the clipping mask is created, the image will only be visible inside the hexagon’s shape.

When using the clipping mask to crop, you’ll first want to create your desired custom cropping shape. You might be designing name tags for a creative conference and want circular images of the person to accompany their name on the tag. For this, open up the image of the person within your artboard and then add a circle over the image.

With both the shape and the image selected, you’ll navigate to the Object menu, hover over “Clipping Mask” and then click “Make.” This will remove all elements of your photo that were outside of the original circle. With this method, the original is preserved and you can adjust the image at any point.

2. Using Opacity Masks

Adobe Illustrator is open to a white artboard with an image of a bridge on it. A white hexagon sits on top of the bridge image. A window is open in the top left corner and the mouse is hovering over “Make Mask.” — Still from Skillshare Class Adobe Illustrator 2023 MasterClass by Khalil Sediqi When you crop using a mask, you can easily retrieve the part of the image you removed.

When cropping with the Opacity mask, you’ll need to start by creating a black or white shape. Similar to cropping with a clipping mask, the shape you choose will define the final shape of your cropped image. With the shape on top of your image and both elements selected, open the “Transparency” panel, which you’ll find in the Window menu.

Click “Make Mask” with “Clip” enabled. This masking tool will remove all parts of your image outside of your chosen shape. Above, the artist chose to crop in the shape of a hexagon and the image outside of its white shape will disappear from the artboard.

3. Using Artboard

Adobe Illustrator is open to a dialogue box showing the computer’s files. The user is saving their file as “SPACE” to their desktop and has selected the “Use Artboards” option. Caption: Export only what you see within your artboard by selecting the “Use Artboards” option when saving your file. — Still from Skillshare Class Learn Adobe Illustrator: Fundamentals for Beginners by Anne Larkina

In Adobe Illustrator, your artboard is the canvas on which you create. Adobe describes it as a digital space similar to a white sheet of paper that forms the base for your artistic work. You can use Adobe’s provided presets or create custom-sized artboards.

You can use your artboards to crop your image by adjusting the size and shape of your artboard or by moving parts of your image outside of your artboard. If you want to change your artboard’s shape to define the area you want cropped from your final image, click on the Artboard icon and adjust its sizing.

Then, export your file by going to File -> Export As. A dialog box will pop up while you’re selecting where you want to save your file and you’ll need to select “Use Artboard” for the export. Now your final file will only include what was visible inside your artboard.

Adobe Illustrator is open to two art boards. One contains an image of an alien and the other has an “R” on it. A “PNG Options” menu is open where the user can adjust the resolution, anti-aliasing, and the background color, which is marked as “Transparent.” — Still from Skillshare Class Learn Adobe Illustrator: Fundamentals for Beginners by Anne Larkina Exporting an image with a transparent background is helpful for layered compositions like website graphics and collages.

If you want to export your image with a transparent background, make sure to export it in a PNG format because JPEG doesn’t support transparency. While you're exporting, choose “Transparent” as your background color.

Preserving Aspect Ratio During Cropping

Aspect ratio is the proportional relationship between an image’s height and width. If you crop an image without preserving its aspect ratio, you might distort the original image by cutting off important elements, removing too much white space, or impacting the viewer’s understanding of the image. If you’ve tried cropping in AI, this is something most machines are still learning.

If you wanted to crop an image of a beautiful mountain landscape, you’d want to make sure to maintain a balanced ratio of sky, mountain, and the lush green meadow in the foreground to give your viewer a proper understanding of the image and its vast, natural beauty. Stretching or squishing an image to achieve a certain aspect ratio can make faces, bodies, and architectural elements look unnatural and distorted.

Crop Images in Minutes

You now know three different ways to crop in Adobe Illustrator but how you crop your images will depend on your unique project. This week, spend time exploring each cropping tool and decide which you feel most comfortable with. Within just a few weeks, you’ll have a strong handle on cropping and be able to move on to more advanced editing within Illustrator.

Written By

Calli Zarpas

Producer & Writer by occupation. Ceramicist & Newsletter Editor by avocation.