Learn how to crop an image down to the correct dimensions to use it as a perfect wallpaper for your iPhone’s Home Screen and Lock Screen.
When setting a picture from Photos as your wallpaper, some parts may get cropped out or bleed outside the screen boundaries. To fix this, you need to crop the image in the aspect ratio that matches your iPhone’s display dimensions and screen resolution.
Doing so ensures no parts will be outside the frame when you set the image as the Lock or Home Screen wallpaper. Plus, iOS won’t apply the weird blurred or stretched effect to the top of the Lock Screen wallpaper if the image is cropped perfectly.
Perfectly crop an image for an iPhone wallpaper
1) Open a desired image inside the Photos app and tap the Edit icon that resembles three horizontal sliders.
2) Select the Crop tool from the bottom.
3) Tap the Aspect Ratio button near the top-right corner, then select the WALLPAPER option at the bottom of the screen.
4) Frame the image by moving it around and zooming with two fingers.
5) When satisfied, tap Done to save the changes.
6) Now tap the Share icon and pick the Use as Wallpaper option from the menu. There’s no need to zoom or adjust the image in the wallpaper interface because it’s already perfectly sized. But if it appears slightly zoomed, pinch it a little before tapping Add or Done. If you can’t pinch in with two fingers, try zooming out and then zooming back in.
This method lets you crop a perfect wallpaper image, but it’s a bit time-consuming as you must fire up the Photos app and use the editing tools (don’t worry, you can always revert edits in Photos). A quicker method is to frame your image when setting your wallpaper, as explained below. But note that this second method may not work with all images.
Adjust the image in the wallpaper interface
When setting the Lock or Home Screen wallpaper on your iPhone, pinch and drag to frame it the way you like.
1) Go to the Settings app on your iPhone and tap Wallpaper.
2) Choose the Add New Wallpaper option or customize the existing one (we’re choosing the former).
3) Select the Photos option at the top, then pick an image from your Photos library.
4) Using two fingers, pinch in or out to change the zoom level and drag with two fingers for the perfect crop.
5) Hit Add or Done when happy with your wallpaper.
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