Touch up images right on the canvas.

Double-click an image to open image editing. The sub-toolbar switches to tools for selecting, painting, cropping, and adjusting. Press ⌘Z to undo your changes one at a time.

ToolIntermediateAbout 6 minDesign mode

Open and close image editing

Open

Double-click an image. You can also select the image and press ↩, or click the separate round button at the right end of the sub-toolbar. The area around the image darkens, and the sub-toolbar switches to 13 image tools.

Double-clickOpen image editing
↩Open the selected image
Right-clickChoose Edit

**Open**Double-clicking the image darkens the area around it and switches the sub-toolbar to image tools. Video: Double-clicking the photo in the scene darkens the area around it, and the sub-toolbar switches from the align buttons to 13 image tools and a finish button.

Close

Press esc. If there’s a selection, the first press only clears it, and the second ends editing. Double-clicking outside the image or clicking the × button at the right end of the sub-toolbar also ends it. Changes stay on the image as you make them, so there’s nothing to save when you finish. Any Adjustments values you haven’t applied with Apply, and any crop box you haven’t applied yet, are discarded.

escClear the selection; press again to finish
Double-click outsideFinish

Letter keys while editing

While you edit an image, letter keys choose image tools: V is Move, B is Brush, and C is Crop. Each tool’s key is listed with it below. Press a shortcut that isn’t an image tool (such as R) to finish editing and switch to that tool.

You can’t select, paint, or crop in an image with Distort on

If Distort is on for an image, image editing dims every button except Invert Colors and Adjustments. Finish editing, click Distort in the sub-toolbar to turn it off, and open image editing again. The corner positions are remembered, so when you’re done, click Distort again to get the same shape back. 3D and distortion explains distortion.

Selection tools

Painting, erasing, and adjusting affect only the selected part. With no selection, changes apply to the whole image. When you choose a selection tool, its settings window opens beside it.

Lasso Select

Drag to draw any shape around the area you want to select. The selection is outlined with a moving dotted line.

Magic Wand Select

Selects colors similar to the spot you click, all at once. Raise Tolerance (30 by default) in the settings window to pick a wider range of colors from your next click on. Turn off Contiguous to also pick the same color in areas not connected to where you clicked. After selecting, press Delete to erase that part to transparent.

Rectangle Select · Ellipse Select

Drag to select a rectangle or an ellipse. M is Rectangle Select. Ellipse Select has no shortcut.

Add to or subtract from a selection

Hold ⇧ while you drag to add to the current selection, or hold ⌥ to subtract from it. You can also choose Add or Subtract under Mode in the settings window. With Rectangle Select and Ellipse Select, ⇧ also locks the shape to a square or a circle. To add a shape without that lock, choose Add under Mode. Dragging inside a selection moves only its dotted outline. With Lasso, Rectangle, or Ellipse Select, clicking outside the selection without dragging clears it. Raise Feather (0–100px) to soften the edges of Lasso, Rectangle, and Ellipse selections.

⇧+drag to selectAdd
⌥+drag to selectSubtract
⌘ASelect the whole image
⌘DClear the selection

Invert Selection

Makes everything outside the selection the new selection. Click it after selecting a person, and the background is selected.

⌘⇧IInvert the selection

Move

Drag the selected part to move it. The spot it came from becomes transparent. Arrow keys move it 1px at a time, or 10px at a time with ⇧ held. To move the whole image, select all of it with ⌘A, then drag.

Painting tools

Choose Brush, Eraser, or Stamp to open its settings window beside it. Size (1–500px), Hardness, and Opacity are remembered separately for each tool. If there’s a selection, you paint only inside it.

Brush

Paints with the color chosen under Color in the settings window. When you draw with a pen or Apple Pencil, the width changes with pressure (Pressure Size, on by default). Hold ⇧ and click to draw a straight line from where you last painted to that spot.

[Decrease the size
]Increase the size
⇧[Decrease the hardness
⇧]Increase the hardness

**Brush**Pressing B and dragging across the image paints a black line. Video: In image editing, pressing B opens the Brush window, and dragging across the photo paints a black brush stroke.

Eraser

Erases where you drag, leaving it transparent.

Stamp

Click a spot to set the source, then drag somewhere else. The source follows at the same distance, and what it covers is painted where you drag. Use it to cover blemishes or text in an image with the surrounding pattern. To change the source, hold ⌥ and click. You can also click Reset Source and then click.

Fill

Choosing it opens the Colors window. Choose a color and click the image to fill the selection with that color. With no selection, the whole image is filled, so first select the area to fill. If the Colors window covers the sub-toolbar, drag the window’s title to move it. To close it, click its × button instead of pressing esc: esc closes image editing too.

Crop and adjust

Crop

A box with eight handles appears on the image. If there’s a selection, the box starts at its size. Drag the handles to set the part to keep, then press ↩ or double-click inside the box. Everything outside the box is erased, and the image shrinks to that size. To crop to a set ratio, click 16:9, 4:3, or 1:1 under Ratio in the Image panel on the right. Image editing opens with a box in that ratio. The chosen ratio isn’t locked. To resize while keeping the ratio, hold ⇧ and drag a corner handle. Dragging inside the box only moves it.

⇧+drag a corner handleKeep the ratio
Drag inside the boxMove the box
⌥+drag a handleResize from the center
↩Crop
escClose without cropping

**Crop**Pressing C, dragging the right handle inward, and pressing ↩ crops the image. Video: In image editing, pressing C puts a crop box with eight handles on the image. Dragging the right handle inward and pressing Enter crops the image to that width.

Invert Colors

Turns the colors of the selection, or of the whole image if nothing is selected, into their opposites.

⌘IInvert the colors

Adjustments

Opens the Image Adjustments window. When you change a value, the image previews it right away, but the change stays only when you click Apply. Reset returns all values to where they started. If there’s a selection, only that area changes. Click a group name to collapse or expand the group.

Groups in the Image Adjustments window and the values they change
Group	What it changes
Tone	Brightness, Contrast, and Exposure, each from −100 to 100
Color	Hue (−180 to 180°) and Saturation (−100 to 100)
Color Balance	Cyan / Red, Magenta / Green, and Yellow / Blue for each of Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights
Black & White	Turn on Convert to Black & White, and add a slight color with Tint.
Levels	Input Black and White (0–255) and Gamma (0.1–9.99), and Output Black and White (0–255). Set them for each channel: RGB, R, G, and B.
Curves	Click an empty spot to add a point, and drag points to remap the values at each brightness level. Right-click a point to delete it.

Extract and compress

Turn part of an image into a new image

In image editing, select the part you want and press ⌘C. Press esc twice to finish editing, then press ⌘V to create a new image with only that part. Depending on the browser, it lands where you copied it or in the center of the screen, so drag it into place. ⌘X copies the part and then erases it, and Delete erases the selected part to transparent. When you erase, the image box shrinks to fit what’s left.

Compress Image

Outside image editing, right-click an image and choose Compress Image. Right-clicking selects the image, and the menu acts on it. The window shows the original size and the estimated size at the chosen Quality (85% by default). Click Compress to save the image again as WebP everywhere it’s used. The resolution and transparent areas stay the same, and one ⌘Z undoes it. Images that wouldn’t get smaller are left as they are. The menu item appears only for PNG, JPEG, and WebP images.

Images with edited pixels are saved as PNG and get bigger

Brushing, erasing, cropping, or adjusting even once saves the image again as PNG. For a photo (JPEG), the file can grow several times larger. When you’re done editing, shrink it with Compress Image.

Removing backgrounds and touching up shapes and text

Tip

To remove a background. In image editing, press W, click the background, and press Delete. If parts are missed, hold ⇧ and click the remaining areas, or raise Tolerance and click again.

Tip

To edit a shape or text as pixels. Select it, right-click it, and choose Convert to Image. It becomes a single image you can open in image editing. After that, you can’t edit its text or shape, so press ⌘Z to undo if you need to.

Tip

For photos with a multicolored background. If the magic wand doesn’t pick it up well, select the image and use the Cutout plugin. Open it from the light-bulb-shaped Plugins button at the top right.

Shortcuts on this page

Shortcuts on this page
Open the selected image in image editing	↩
Select the whole image	⌘A
Clear the selection	⌘D
Erase the selected part	Delete
Apply the crop	↩
Clear the selection or finish editing	esc

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Updated 10/13/2026 · The videos on this page were recorded in the current editor.