Change aspect ratio without cropping

Three ways to change a photo's shape

Every tool that reshapes an image is doing one of three things, and it is worth knowing which one you are getting:

• Crop — cuts material off the edges. Keeps quality, loses content.
• Stretch — squashes the whole image to fit. Keeps content, ruins proportions.
• Outpaint — generates new picture around the original. Keeps both.

Outpainting is the only one of the three that changes the shape without a trade-off, because it adds rather than removes. Your photo sits inside the new canvas at its original proportions, and the AI fills whatever is left over with background that continues the scene.

Common conversions

• Portrait to landscape (9:16 → 16:9). The biggest jump, and the one that asks most of the AI — it has to invent picture on both sides. Open at 1920 × 1080.
• Landscape to portrait (16:9 → 9:16). Usually for phone wallpapers, where the new space goes above and below. Open at 1080 × 1920.
• Anything to square (1:1). The gentlest change, because neither dimension moves far. Open at 1080 × 1080.
• Widescreen to ultrawide (16:9 → 21:9). Adds a strip to each side. Open at 2560 × 1080.

How far you can push it

The rule of thumb is simple: the more of the final image the AI has to invent, the more likely the result looks like a collage rather than one photograph. A modest change — square to 16:9, say — is close to reliable. A drastic one, such as a wide landscape shot forced into a tall phone screen, can leave more than half the canvas up to the AI, and those attempts need more regenerating.

Two things help. Set an anchor under Outpaint Options so the new space goes where you want it rather than being split evenly. And, since previews are free, just regenerate — each attempt uses a new random seed and can come out very differently.

Common questions

How do I change a photo’s aspect ratio without cropping it?

Use outpainting rather than a crop tool. Outpainting places your photo in a canvas of the new shape at its original proportions and generates fresh background to fill the empty space, so nothing is cut off and nothing is distorted.

Will my photo be stretched or squashed?

No. Your image keeps its own proportions and is composited unchanged into the larger canvas. Only the surrounding space is generated. There is a separate free "stretch to fill" option if a plain distorted resize is genuinely what you want.

What sizes can I output?

Presets cover 1080 × 1920, 1920 × 1080, 2560 × 1080, 1080 × 1080 and 3840 × 2160, and you can enter any custom size up to 4096 pixels on each side.

What if the result looks wrong?

Regenerate it — that is free and unlimited. You only pay £1.50 when you unlock a result you are happy with, so a bad attempt costs you nothing.