Free
Adobe Express Image Resizer
Resizes a photo to a social platform's size or to exact pixel dimensions, free with an Adobe account.
FreemiumBeginnerWebiOSAndroid
Overview
Adobe Express's image resizer changes the dimensions of a photo. Pick a platform, Instagram, Facebook, X, YouTube or Pinterest, and it applies that size. You can also type an exact width and height in pixels. You then scale, pan and crop to decide which part of the picture stays in the new shape. It accepts JPEG, PNG, WebP and HEIC.
It runs in the browser and in the free iPhone and Android apps. It needs a free Adobe account. Plain resizing costs nothing. The generative AI that extends a photo past its edges instead of cropping runs on a paid Premium subscription's credits. It handles one image at a time.
Key features
✓Presets for Instagram, Facebook, X, YouTube & Pinterest
✓Standard aspect ratio presets
✓Custom width & height in pixels
✓Scale, pan & crop to choose what stays in
✓Accepts JPEG, PNG, WebP & HEIC
✓Download or open straight in the full editor
✓Generative expand fills new space on Premium
When to use
Adobe Express's image resizer fits when one photo needs to be a specific size. Use it if:
- You need an image at a platform's required size and do not want to look the number up. The presets cover Instagram, Facebook, X, YouTube and Pinterest, among others.
- You have been given a size in pixels. The custom option takes an exact width and height.
- You want to choose which part of the photo stays. Scaling, panning and cropping keep the subject instead of an automatic crop cutting through it.
- The resized photo is going into a post or a thumbnail. You can send it straight into the full Express editor instead of downloading and re-uploading.
- You already pay for Creative Cloud or Express Premium, in which case generative expand is included.
- Your photo came off an iPhone as a HEIC file, which this accepts directly.
When NOT to use
Skip Adobe Express's image resizer if any of these describe you:
- You have a folder of images to resize. This does one at a time, and Adobe's own documentation points to Photoshop or Lightroom for bulk work. BIRME and BulkResizePhotos do batches for free in the browser.
- You do not want an Adobe account. Signing in is required. Squoosh resizes with no account at all.
- Your problem is that the file is too big to upload. That is compression, not resizing. An image compressor is the tool for it.
- The photo is confidential. This uploads your image to Adobe's servers. Squoosh does the work on your own machine, so nothing leaves it.
- You want the whole photo kept at a new shape without paying. Filling the new space runs on Premium's generative credits, so on the free plan a shape change means cropping something away.
Frequently asked questions
Yes for ordinary resizing. You do need a free Adobe account, because everything in Express needs a sign-in. Picking a preset or typing custom dimensions, cropping and downloading the result all cost nothing. Extending a photo past its original edges when you change its shape runs on Premium's generative credits.
Resizing changes the dimensions, meaning how many pixels wide and tall the image is. Compressing keeps the dimensions and shrinks the file by storing the picture more efficiently. If a site rejects your photo for being too many pixels wide, resize it. If it rejects it for being too many megabytes, you want a compressor instead. Adobe Express has a separate compress tool for that.
A square photo cannot become a wide banner while keeping everything that was in it. Either part of the image is cropped away, or new image is invented along the edges to fill the gap. The free tool crops, and it lets you scale and pan to choose what stays. Adobe offers the second option through generative AI, but it runs on Premium credits. On the free plan, changing the shape means losing something at the edges.
Making a photo smaller is safe, because you are discarding pixels you no longer need. Making it larger works differently. The pixels to fill the extra size do not exist, so they are invented by stretching what is there, and the result is softer than the original. To make a small photo much larger, use an image upscaler instead, since upscalers add detail rather than stretch it.
No. Adobe Express handles one image at a time, and Adobe's documentation points to Photoshop or Lightroom for large sets. Free browser tools like BIRME and BulkResizePhotos take many images and resize them all to the same size in one go.
Alternatives to Adobe Express Image Resizer
Freemium
Freemium
ImageResizer.com
Browser tool that resizes, crops, compresses and converts images with no account, free up to 5 images a batch and 10 MB a file.
BeginnerWeb
Free
