Pinterest Image Resizer

The sizes that matter

Size	Ratio	Use it for
1000 × 1500	2:3	The default. Pinterest's own recommendation and what most pins should be.
1000 × 2100	10:21	Long infographics. Takes more feed space but risks being cropped in some placements.
1000 × 1000	1:1	Square, when the composition demands it. Occupies less vertical space than 2:3.
600 × 600	1:1	Board covers.
1080 × 1920	9:16	Video pins and vertical formats.

If you are unsure, use 2:3. It is the ratio Pinterest recommends, it renders predictably everywhere, and it avoids the awkward truncation that catches very long pins in certain placements.

Why aspect ratio decides reach

Pinterest's feed is a vertical masonry grid. A tall pin simply occupies more of the screen than a wide one, and a pin that occupies more screen gets more attention. A landscape image in a vertical feed is a small strip that is easy to scroll past.

This is the highest-leverage, lowest-effort change most people can make to their pins — and it costs nothing but a crop.

How the crop works

The tool scales your image to cover the target box and centre-crops the overflow, so the result fills the frame without distortion. Nothing is stretched.

That does mean edges can be trimmed. If your image has important detail near a border — a face, a logo, text — check the preview before downloading, and if necessary crop it yourself first so the subject sits centrally.

Nothing is uploaded

The resize happens in your browser using a canvas. Your image is never sent to a server, never stored, and never seen by anyone else. It also means the tool works with no network connection once the page has loaded, and there is no file-size limit beyond what your own machine can handle.

Shrink the file afterwards with the image compressor, or crop a board cover with the board cover maker.

The sizes that matter, and why

Pinterest is a vertical feed, and vertical images take more of it. That single fact drives every size recommendation you will read.

1000 × 1500 (2:3) — the standard pin. Long enough to dominate a column, short enough that Pinterest never crops it. This is the default and it is right for almost everything.
1000 × 2100 (roughly 1:2.1) — the longest ratio that displays in full. Useful for step-by-step graphics and infographics. Anything taller gets truncated in the feed with a "see more" affordance, which costs you the ending.
1000 × 1000 (1:1) — square. Fine for product shots where the object is the point, weaker in a scroll because it occupies less height.
1080 × 1920 (9:16) — full-screen vertical, suited to video and to pins designed to be viewed one at a time.

Width above 1000 pixels buys you very little: Pinterest re-encodes for display anyway, and a 2000-pixel-wide upload mostly means a slower upload. Height is where the decision is.

Resizing versus cropping

These are different operations and confusing them is why resized pins look wrong.

Resizing scales the whole image. Change the ratio while resizing and everything stretches — faces widen, circles become ovals. This is the distinctive "squashed pin" look, and it reads as careless.

Cropping removes parts of the image to reach the target ratio and leaves the remainder untouched. This is almost always what you want. Take a 4000 × 3000 landscape photo to 1000 × 1500 and you are discarding most of the width — so the question is which part of the width to keep, and that is a decision only you can make well.

This tool crops to the ratio and then scales, which preserves proportions. Where the crop lands still matters: check that the subject has not been cut in half before you upload.

Turning a landscape photo into a pin

Most photos are horizontal and most pins are vertical, so this conversion is the everyday case. Three approaches, in order of how well they usually work:

Crop into the subject. If the photo has a clear focal point, crop tight around it in 2:3. You lose context and gain impact, which is the correct trade in a feed.
Stack two crops. Two different moments from the same shoot, one above the other, fills the vertical space with real content rather than empty margin.
Add a text band. Put the landscape image in the upper two-thirds and a solid band with the title underneath. This is the classic blog pin format and it works because it fills the height with information instead of padding.

What not to do: add white bars above and below to force the ratio. It reaches 2:3 without using the space, and the pin reads as small even though it is tall.

File size, format and quality

Format: JPEG for photographs, PNG for graphics with flat colour and text. PNG keeps type crisp; JPEG keeps photos small.
File size: stay comfortably under Pinterest's upload ceiling — a few megabytes is plenty for a 1000 × 1500 pin. Enormous files gain nothing because Pinterest re-encodes for display.
Quality: around 80–85% JPEG quality is visually indistinguishable from 100% at pin sizes and can be a third of the weight. The image compressor handles this.
Colour: export in sRGB. Files in other colour profiles can shift noticeably once re-encoded.

Designing for a thumbnail, not for your screen

You judge your pin at full size on a monitor. Nearly everyone else sees it a couple of inches tall on a phone, in a column beside four competitors. That gap is where most pin designs fail.

Text large enough to read at thumbnail size. If you have to squint at 25% zoom, it is too small.
One idea per pin. A collage of six small photos becomes visual noise at feed scale.
Real contrast between text and background. Light type on a busy photo disappears; add a solid band or a scrim.
Keep detail away from the extreme edges, which can be clipped in some placements.

To check a design before publishing, the pin preview shows it at feed scale, and the pin size checker tells you whether a file you already have is the right shape.

Everything happens in your browser

The resizer uses a canvas element locally. Your image is never uploaded, never stored and never sent to a server — which is the reason it works offline once the page has loaded, and the reason it is safe to use on unreleased product photography or client work you are not permitted to hand to a third party.

Resizing for a specific job

A blog post pin: 1000 × 1500, image on top, solid band with the title below. The band gives you contrast without fighting the photo.
A product pin: 1000 × 1500 with the product filling most of the frame. Lifestyle context helps, but the object has to be unmistakable at thumbnail size.
A step-by-step graphic: up to 1000 × 2100, but put a complete summary in the top 1000 pixels — many people never expand it.
A quote or text-only pin: 1000 × 1500 with type large enough to read at a couple of inches tall. Test it by shrinking the image to 25%.
A profile photo: square, and remember it is displayed as a circle — keep the subject centred and away from the corners.

Batch work without losing quality

Resizing forty pins one at a time is tedious, and the usual shortcut — a single automatic centre crop across the batch — is what produces pins with someone's head cut off. Automatic cropping has no idea where your subject is.

A practical middle ground: sort the images by orientation first. Portrait images that are already close to 2:3 can be batch-cropped safely. Landscape images need individual attention, because the decision of which third of the width to keep is a creative one. In a set of forty, that is usually ten photos needing real thought and thirty that can be handled quickly.

When the source image is too small

If you only have a 600 × 400 photo, no resizer will make a good 1000 × 1500 pin from it. Upscaling adds pixels and softness, and softness at feed scale reads as a low-quality pin.

Better options, in order:

Use it at its native size within a taller design — the photo in the top portion, a solid colour block with type below. The photo stays sharp because it is not being stretched.
Crop tighter rather than scaling up. A sharp 600 × 900 crop beats a soft 1000 × 1500 upscale.
Retake or re-export it if you have the original. Most "small" images are small because of an export setting, not because the camera could not do better.

Checking the result before you publish

Two quick tests catch nearly every problem. Shrink the image to about 25% and see whether the subject and the text still read — that is roughly feed scale on a phone. Then view it on your phone rather than your monitor, because that is where most people will meet it. The pin preview does the first of those for you.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best Pinterest image size?

1000 × 1500 pixels — a 2:3 ratio. It is Pinterest's own recommendation and renders predictably in every placement.

Are my images uploaded anywhere?

No. The resize runs in your browser on your own machine. The file never leaves your device and nothing is stored.

Will resizing distort my image?

No. The image is scaled to cover the target size and centre-cropped, so proportions are preserved. Edges may be trimmed, so check the preview if important detail sits near a border.

Can I use very tall pins?

You can — 1000 × 2100 takes more feed space. But very long pins risk truncation in some placements, so 2:3 remains the safer default.

Does image size affect Pinterest reach?

Yes, meaningfully. The feed is a vertical grid, so taller pins occupy more screen and attract more attention than wide ones.

What is the best Pinterest image size?

1000 × 1500 pixels, a 2:3 ratio. It fills a feed column without being cropped, and it is the right default for nearly every pin.

What is the tallest pin Pinterest will show in full?

Around 1000 × 2100. Taller images get truncated in the feed with a "see more" affordance, so the bottom of a longer graphic will not be seen.

How do I turn a landscape photo into a Pinterest pin?

Crop into the subject rather than stretching, or stack two crops, or place the photo above a solid text band. Avoid padding with white bars — it reaches the ratio without using the space.

Does a bigger image upload rank better?

No. Pinterest re-encodes for display, so anything much beyond 1000 pixels wide adds upload time without adding visible quality.

Are my images uploaded anywhere when I use this?

No. The resizing runs on a canvas in your own browser. The file never leaves your device, which makes it safe for client work and unreleased product shots.

Can I batch-resize pins safely?

Portrait images already close to 2:3 batch fine. Landscape images need individual attention — an automatic centre crop is exactly what produces pins with the subject cut in half.

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