How to Crop in Inkscape
Something as seemingly simple as cropping in Inkscape can baffle beginners and pros alike. Let’s go over how to crop in this quick tutorial.
Step 1
For this example, I’ll be using this adorable Pikachu wallpaper from a previous tutorial. I should also note that if you’re wanting to crop an entire scene, make sure everything is Grouped. (select everything, Object > Group)
Step 2
Next, grab the Rectangle tool and draw an area that you’d like to crop. As you can see below, I’ve intentionally made my rectangle transparent so that I could see the area under it.
Step 3
With both the scene and the rectangle selected, head up to Object > Clip > Set to crop.
Step 4
Below is my cropped result!
Step 5
You don’t have to just use rectangles either – you can use any shape imaginable, such as a group of circles.
Step 6
After repeating the same steps, I ended up with this neat result!
That’s How to Crop!
This was part of the 5 Essential Inkscape Tips and Tricks.
Cropping in Inkscape is a super effective way to remove a portion of a scene or image. Now that you know how to crop, you probably also noticed that it’s super easy to do in Inkscape. Thanks for reading!
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About The Author
Aaron Nieze
Aaron has been using Inkscape for professional design for 5+ years and can’t wait to share everything he knows about it!
Nice tutorial on using the Clip command. So then what is a mask? First time here, so apologies if you’ve posted somewhere RE: mask. Also, this technique is good for finished work but when building up complex paths I do things differently. I’ll use the rectangle or a custom shape and then do a Path>Difference or Path>Intersection to trim pieces. Useful to build one side of a shape, like a vase crop path to 1/2 fit at centerline, duplicate, mirror and then combine. Love the circles example with Picachu, very stylish finish for that piece.
Masking is the same as clipping, but masking uses color lightness for opacity. So if you mask with a black shape, the result will be completely transparent. With a white shape – completely opaque. Thanks for reading!