Practically everyone nowadays uses their phone or tablet to take and store photographs. They are a very useful tool to share your images quickly via social media and messaging apps. Sometimes, an image may be too large to share. You may even wish to only share part of a picture and not the whole thing.
There is a range of apps available that can alter the dimensions of an image, whether that is via cropping or resizing the picture. There are also several apps at your disposal to reduce the actual file size of an image. Read on to discover which apps suit your needs.
1. Pixlr
Pixlr is a very popular photo editor for Android users. Not only can it resize and crop your photos, but it also has a wealth of other handy features available. This is an excellent app for beginners, too. It has a nice user interface that is easy to navigate and the controls are straightforward and simple to use. What’s not to like?
The home screen features a number of options when you launch the app. You can use your camera to take a picture, which you can then edit using one of Pixlr’s many functions. There is an option to edit the existing photos on your device or stored on your cloud. You can create a collage of images that can be customized to get a number of different styles. There are even some decorative elements within the Templates tool.
Once you have selected your image within the app, cropping couldn’t be easier. Opening the “tools” menu offers a range of nifty tricks, with the cropping function being the first to choose from. Selecting the crop tool presents you with a number of options. “Free mode” lets you choose the cropping area, while there are also several aspect ratios to choose from. There are also plenty of effects to play with, so you can customize your snaps.
Download: Pixlr for Android (Free, with premium version available)
2. Adobe Photoshop Express
If you are looking for something a little more advanced, then check out Adobe’s Express version of their world-famous Photoshop app. Designed for editing your pics on the go, this is a great app with bags of functionality. Adobe has provided tonnes of features to give your shots that professional edge, even though the app is mobile-native.
The app allows you to select images from your device, cloud, Lightroom (another Adobe app) or your Adobe asset library. You can also take a picture with the phone camera and edit it there and then. Once you have selected the image you would like to work with, a seemingly limitless range of options will present themselves. Filters, borders, and stickers are all available to add fun-factor to your pics.
The crop tool offers a wide selection of aspect ratios that you can use, some of which are incredibly helpful. There are the “usual suspects”, so you can crop the image to 16:9 or 6:4 for example. Adobe goes one step further than many apps, though. You can choose from “Facebook Page Cover”, “Youtube Channel Art”, and even “Kindle” automatic cropping sizes! With this level of functionality, Adobe Photoshop Express really stands out from the crowd.
Download: Adobe Photoshop Express for Android (Free)
3. Lit Photo Compress and Resize
Lit Photo’s Photo Compress and Resize app is a super-easy way to compress, crop, and resize images. This makes sending photos over email, Whatsapp, or Facebook Messenger, a cinch. The app is great in terms of navigation, with all of the app’s functions displayed upon launch.
As mentioned, there are three main jobs the app can do. Selecting one of the options offers further customization in terms of resizing the image. Compression mode allows you to compress the image in terms of quality, measured by percentage, or by size, measured in megabytes. This reduces the file size.
If you want to change the dimensions of the picture, then you achieve this via the Resize option. Again, this allows various methods of resizing. You can do so via pixel count, which allows you to maintain the aspect ratio or not, depending on what you want to do with the image. Handily, resize also allows you to compress the image within the same option. You can double down on reducing the size of the file in one fell swoop.
Finally, there is the crop tool. This is pretty limited, as it only has five cropping ratios available. However, there are plenty of other ways to crop an image. So, if you can live with only a small selection of auto-crop features, then this is an excellent app.
Download: Lit Photo Compress and Resize for Android (Free, with premium version available)
4. Codenia Image Size
Codenia offers a practical-yet-simple solution to image resizing. The app has plenty of features that you will find in a lot of similar apps. There are plenty of customizable options in the “photo editor” section, which allow you to make various adjustments to the appearance of your picture.
Where Codenia Image Size really shines, though, is its image resizing function. The screen contains all of the information you need alongside the image itself. Below the toolbar at the top of the app screen is a box that contains information about the original image. This details the original dimensions of the pic, the date it was taken, and the dpi.
Below the information box sit the controls for altering the image height and width, up to a maximum of 6000 pixels. You can input the required dimensions yourself or select from preset dimensions, accessed via a pop-up menu. You can also lock the aspect ratio to ensure the image looks the same despite the size change.
Below the pic itself, which sits in the center of the screen, is the information on file size. This is incredibly useful as it lets you see the original file size of the picture and the resulting file size once you have finished editing.
Download: Codenia Image Size for Android (Free, with premium version available)
5. Resize Me
XnView is a well-known PC software developer in computer-user circles. It has been a go-to simple image editor for years and their mobile Resize Me app offers excellent tools for reducing file size. If an easy-to-use image resizing app is on your list of downloads, then this is all you need.
Launching the app allows you to select a photo from your album, take a new one, or batch convert a bunch of snaps. The first two options work in the same way once you have selected or taken a picture. You have options to flip horizontally and vertically, as well as rotating the picture.
Cropping is easy too, with a “free crop” tool present along with a range of preset ratios to crop to. The final option allows you to select the size for saving the picture, presented as a list. The first few options include a percentage value next to the dimensions, so you can see the difference in file size once the reduction is applied.
The batch converter is where the app really stands out, though. With this tool, you simply select a swathe of photos to alter and then select the new dimensions. Very easy and very useful if you want to alter a load of snaps in one go.
Download: Resize Me for Android (Free, with premium version available)
Which Image Resizer Is Right for Your Needs?
A quick flick through the Android app store will reveal a glut of resizing apps. Many of them offer exactly the same thing, so if you select one of the above apps you can save some drive space as well as reducing the size of your images. A great all-rounder will service a number of photo-editing needs.
Are you looking to take your photographs to the next level? Check out the best apps to animate your photos on Android and iPhone.
Read the full article: The 5 Best Android Apps to Reduce Image Size
