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Customize images with crop, crop shapes and opacity tools

Renée Meloche
Renée Meloche
  • Updated

Add a photo to your design canvas and customize its appearance with Venngage's image customization tools: crop, shape and opacity (control the transparency level of an image). 

In the upgraded Venngage editor, a colorful design canvas showing two rows of stock photos of children playing and engaging in different activities is open. A user clicks on 'Photos' in the left sidebar and selects a stock image from the gallery. The image, of a young child blowing bubbles, appears on the canvas. The user closes the left sidebar gallery, centering the design canvas in the Editor.

 

Crop an image

Select the image on the canvas.

Select Crop in the top toolbar. The canvas will darken, and the part of the image that will appear when the image is cropped is highlighted.

Resize the crop area to your desired dimensions, using the corners of the bounding box to make it larger or smaller (note: the crop area cannot exceed the total area/dimensions of the image).

Move the image (click and drag or arrow keys) into the position you want. The part(s) of the image that appear shadowed or darkened will be cropped out.  

A design canvas with many colorful stock photos appears in the upgraded Venngage Editor. A user selects a large photo of a child blowing bubbles, which overlays half of the canvas. When the user selects the image, controls appear in the top toolbar, including the Crop icon. The user selects the crop icon and the image on the canvas enters 'crop' mode, where the entire canvas is in shadow and the image the user is editing is highlighted, appearing as a 'focal' section. The sections of the image that are cropped out also appear in shadow. The user clicks and drags the image from the highlighted area, moving a different section of the full photo into the highlighted area, and other parts of the image into the darkened (cropped) area. The user then clicks on a different part of the canvas, deselecting the image and saving the edits they made to it with the crop tool.

Crop an image into a specific shape

Select the image.

Select or click Crop Shape in the top toolbar. From the drop-down menu, click on the shape you want to use to crop the image (e.g., rectangle, square, circle, star, burst).

A design canvas with a flow-chart design featuring many blue circles appears in the upgraded Venngage Editor. The left sidebar is open to the Photos tool, with the search results for the term 'business' displayed in the gallery, partly overlaying the canvas. A user selects a stock image of a person standing behind a graphic displaying data trending upward with a large arrow. When the user selects the image, a suite of tools appears in the top toolbar, including the Crop Shape tool. The user clicks on Crop Shape and opens the menu, which displays different usable shapes to crop the image, including rectangle, triangle, stars, etc. The user selects the circle shape and the image is cropped to a circle. The user then clicks on the Crop tool in the top toolbar, in order to move the center portion of the photo into the highlighted area and crop out some of the image. The user then clicks on a different part of the canvas, deselecting the image and saving the edits they made to it with the crop tool.

 

Click the shape to apply the crop shape to the image.

Change the part of the image or icon that appears in the cropped area

Select the image, then select Crop from the top toolbar. Move the image into the focal area or resize the crop area and move the image.

A design canvas with a simple blue-green background appears in the upgraded Venngage Editor. A user selects a large photo of a night scene of land running next to a body of water with a single, tall tree in the middle, its reflection visible in the water beneath it. The image overlays part of the canvas. When the user selects the image, controls appear in the top toolbar, including the Crop icon. The user selects the crop icon and the image on the canvas enters 'crop' mode, where the entire canvas is in shadow and the image the user is editing is highlighted in a 'focal' section. The sections of the image that are cropped out also appear in shadow. Using the handles on the selection border, the user resizes the crop are to make it smaller, highlighting the top-right section of the image in the focal area. Then the user clicks inside the 'cropped' area of the image and repositions the photo so that the tree appears centered in the focal area. The user clicks outside the image on the canvas and the edits they made to the image with the crop tool are saved. The user then clicks on the Crop Shape tool in the top toolbar and changes the crop shape from rectangle to circle. This displaces the tree from the center of the focal area. The user clicks the Crop tool in the top toolbar and clicks and drags the image so that the tree is centered in the circle again. The user then clicks on a different part of the canvas, deselecting the image and saving the edits they made to it with the crop tool.

 

Resize the image while in Crop Mode

You can also resize the image while in crop mode to change how it appears in the focal area. 

On a dark blue background in the upgraded Venngage Editor, a colorful photo of a person with long hair and a projection of computer code over they face appears. A user selects the photo, which is cropped to a square, and clicks Crop in the top toolbar to enter Crop Mode. The entire area of the photo appears as slightly shadowed around the focal area of the crop, which appears in a normal color. At the bottom right corner of the shadowed area representing the total size of the uncropped photo, a small circle handle appears. The user clicks and drags the handle, making the photo larger and changing the part of the photo that appears in the focal area of the crop frame. The user also clicks and drags and repositions the focal area of the crop frame to center the photo.

 

Click anywhere outside of the image or press Esc to deselect the image and confirm the change.

 

VENNGAGE MAKES IT EASY

Double-click on a cropped image to 
bring up the Image Replace menu. 
Choose an image to replace the selected one
on the canvas, and the new image will
appear with the same crop (or crop shape)
as the image it replaced.
 

Change the opacity/transparency of an image

Select the image. 

Click or select Opacity in the top toolbar. 

Use the slider to change the opacity, making the image more or less transparent, or type the percentage of Opacity into the text field where the percentage appears, next to the slider.

A design canvas with many colorful stock photos appears in the upgraded Venngage Editor. A user selects a photo of a child blowing bubbles, which appears overlaid on a yellow square. When the user selects the image, image tools appear in the top toolbar, including the Opacity icon. The user selects the opacity icon in the top toolbar, and a widget appears with a slider bar that shows the image is at 100% opacity. The user slides the slider to 66%, which causes the image to become more transparent, allowing the yellow tone of the square behind it to color the image slightly.

Images with a lower opacity let through some of the color of the elements that appear behind the image, which can create an interesting stylistic effect.

Add alt text to non-decorative images

Images that are non-decorative, that is, images that are important for readers/viewers to understand as they appear in the context of your design, require alternative (alt) text, a text description that accessibility tools like screen readers or visually impaired users rely on in order to understand and decipher images. 

Add an alt text description to images: select an image and click "Alt Text" in the top toolbar. Write the description of the image in the Description field.

A design canvas with many colorful stock photos appears in the upgraded Venngage Editor. A user selects a photo of a child blowing bubbles, which appears overlaid on a yellow square. When the user selects the image, image tools appear in the top toolbar, including the Alt Text tool. The user clicks 'Alt Text' and a modal appears over the design canvas, with the heading 'Add Alt Text' and a text field underneath a subheading 'Description'. The user types 'A child holding a bubble wand blows a stream of bubbles' into the description field, then clicks Save, closing the modal and saving the alt text to the image.

 

For images that are decorative, mark them as decorative by selecting the image, clicking on "Alt Text" in the top toolbar, and checking "Mark as Decorative" underneath the description field. 

 

The feature(s) discussed in this article is available on the following Venngage subscription plans: Free, Premium, Business and Enterprise.

Curious about upgrading? Compare our plan features side by side.

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