By: Rob Adams, travel photographer, Asian food aficionado
.
5.0
Votes: 2(Rated: )
Last updated: 19.01.2024
Want to make a hilarious meme for your friends and subs to laugh out loud? Planning to create an unearthly avant-garde photo collage? Or want to swap faces with a celebrity on the red carpet? Whatever purpose you have for cropping faces in an image, there is one thing you have to do regardless – choose a photo editor. However, with an abundance of options on the table, the choice becomes a chore. But we are here to will help you with this ordeal.
We have done our research to compile a list of fun and versatile programs for different levels of skill, ambition, and wallet fullness. Read along and discover a handful of great photo editors for PC, Mac, and mobile devices that you can pick from. We’ll also show how to crop faces with one of them in the end.
Below, we will review 10 reliable face-cropping apps for PC, Mac, and mobile. We have thoroughly researched each of them from top to bottom and are ready to get behind every single one. But first, let’s take a brief look at the top picks in each category:
PhotoWorks is an editor that is accessible even to complete amateurs. Cropping faces and other editing tasks take a few clicks, thanks to AI-powered features, an intuitive interface, and a vast library of pre-made effects and filters. PhotoWorks will also please pro-editors with advanced tools, such as Curves, 3D LUTs, and Tone Mapping. And it is also free to try. Read our feature-by-feature review below to learn more!
Contrary to what the name suggests, Preview also allows editing and cropping images and has quite a decent toolkit for essential editing. It includes tools for color and exposure correction, contrast and temperature adjustment, and more. You can also apply changes to individual parts of your image, add captions, and edit PDF files with the help of this program.
Faceover is a mobile photo editor to crop faces specifically. It allows you to digitally cut out and swap heads, more so for comedic effect than serious photo editing. But you can still achieve very authentic results: swap your face with a celebrity on the red carpet, add yourself to a movie poster or painting, or exchange bodies with your dog. Faceover’s toolbox is so easy to use that you can take pictures and swap faces right on the spot.
Value for money: ...............................10
Final verdict: ...................................9.6
PhotoWorks is everything a “people’s” photo editing program should be – uncomplicated, accessible, and versatile. Along with must-have features like color grading, exposure adjustment, sharpness control, and cropping it has AI-powered tools to help you make complex edits in a click.
Among other features, it includes background removing and overlaying, which will let you cut out faces, swap them, and create fun collages with celebrities, deceased relatives, or friends who weren’t present for the photo.
Value for money: .................................10
Final verdict: .................................9
GIMP is a totally free open-source photo editor, available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. The toolkit it offers is nearly equal to those of paid top-tier programs, like Photoshop. It allows you to work with layers, process color, adjust curves, reduce noise, crop out faces, and much more. The only downside is that to access all that goodness, you’ll have to grapple with its messy interface. For instance, cropping a face out would require fine-tuning selection tools, going through a bunch of drop-down menus, and so on.
Value for money: .................................9
Final verdict: .................................8
Microsoft Office Suite is an assembly of means to work with documents, presentations, graphs, and whatever might be useful for the functioning of an actual office. Among those means, however, is a Picture Format tool that can remove parts of images or their backgrounds within Word documents. You can implement it to crop out someone’s face and lay it over another image.
In terms of graphics editing, Microsoft Office is rather limited and designed with other activities in mind. But it is enough for making uncomplicated collages if you don’t want to spend time learning more complex programs.
Final verdict: .................................7.3
Auto Face Swap is a free photo cropping app. It allows you to do a face swap in one click. You can also swap faces in a live webcam feed and, for example, have some fun during video calls. This app is very straightforward and aims at casual users. On the downside, it is a one-trick pony and offers little beyond the core feature.
Value for money: .................................9
Final verdict: ..................................8
If you are a Mac user, then chances are you already have Preview. It is capable of more than you'd expect from a vendor-supplied program – it features gallery management tools, PDF editing features, and, of course, photo processing tools for face cropping and other editing tasks. Still, it is best to crop photos with this app if you are not willing to install anything extra on your Mac. Otherwise, we suggest going with a more functional alternative.
Value for money: .................................6
Final verdict: ..................................7.3
ACDSee Photo Studio for Mac is an all-purpose photo editor and gallery organizer. It supports hundreds of RAW formats, has a powerful RAW processing engine, and offers a decent toolkit for face cropping and overall photo enhancement. You just have to upload a photo with the person’s face, wipe off all the unnecessary, and place the cropped face against a new background. However, despite its quite modern and sleek design, the program is actually more basic than it appears and does not match its price tag.
Value for money: .................................5
Final verdict: ..................................6
With iPhoto 11, you can edit images, make slideshows, organize them into albums, and swiftly share them on social networks. The program is also equipped with a Photo Stream feature, that allows you to shoot an image with an iPad or iPhone and have it appear in iPhoto 11 via the cloud.
When it comes to face cropping, this program allows only to zoom in on faces and crop them as rectangular portraits. For more precise cutting, we suggest you try the alternatives listed above. Besides, iPhoto was officially discontinued in 2014. Therefore, there will be no further updates or fixes. If you're not going for anything extraordinary and don't want extra apps, give this pre-installed editor a shot.
Pros:
Convenient organization of cropped face images
Editing tools for uncomplicated retouching
Unique Photo Stream feature
Comprehensive interface
Quick performance
Cons:
Only basic editing tools
Officially discontinued
Cropping Faces into Pictures – Apps for On-The-Go Editing
Value for money: .................................7
Final verdict: .....................................7.3
If you want to cut and paste the faces of your friends with your iPhone right on the spot, then Faceover is a way to go. With this iOS app, you can edit photos from your library with a few swipes. Just place a predefined frame over the face to cut it out and seamlessly place it over a new backdrop. You can share edited pictures across social media right away.
However, the free version of this face cropper has a toolkit limited to cropping, saving, and sharing. Besides, you can edit only a fixed number of images. To access other tools and remove limitations, you’ll need to buy the full version.
Value for money: .................................7
Final verdict: .....................................7
Cupace is a simple face-cutting and pasting app for Android. If you want to quickly create some fun photo montages with your friends or craft a couple of humorous memes, Cupace will serve you just right. You can also add text and stickers, overlay images, and share your work across multiple platforms. Cropping faces into pictures with this app is a breeze thanks to an on-screen magnifying glass that helps you line out the face with great accuracy. But do not expect any advanced editing features from this app.
Value for money: .................................7
Final verdict: .....................................6.6
Auto Photo Cut Paste is another Android photo cropper app that will automatically cut out any part of your image you place a marker on. With its help, you can crop a face and then put it over any other image. Auto Photo Cut Paste is also a decent PFP cropper. But wary of potential performance issues – there are bug reports for this one.
Pros:
Cropping faces with a few finger taps
Built-in backdrop collection
AI color recognition
Quick processing
Sharing across social networks
Cons:
Recurring bugs
How to Cut Faces Out of Pictures
With these apps, you can do face cropping anywhere, anytime. But let’s move from concept to action and see the process of editing with PhotoWorks – the best photo editor for PC from our list. With this handy program, you can swap faces in a snap. Without further ado, let’s see how to crop a face out step by step.
Step 1. Install the Program
Click the button below to download the installation file of PhotoWorks – a versatile and user-friendly photo editor. Then run this file and follow the installation instructions. Then launch the program from the desktop icon.
Load the image you want to edit in the program. You can click Open Photo and navigate to your picture via the file browser. Alternatively, drag and drop a photo into the program window from anywhere on your PC.
Step 3. Remove the Unneeded
Open the Tools tab and pick Change Background from the toolkit. Then use the Object brush to designate the face and the Background brush to mark the surrounding. Click Next and let the program’s AI engine crop the head. Once processing is over, you can use corresponding brushes to remove or restore finer details. Click Next.
Brush off everything around the model’s face
Step 4. Save the Cutout
Blur and extend the borders of your cropped images to make their edges more smooth. Then click Save with a transparent background to export your face cut out of a picture and use it for montages later.
Save the cutout now, wrap your head around its purpose later
Step 5. Stick the Face to a New Image
To apply your cutout right away, after Step 3, click Select Background Image and choose Load My Own. Find the image you want to use as a background and open it. Move and resize the face to make it fit. You can also make the colors match better with a dedicated slider. Click Apply and then click Save to export your work.
Save your work to share with others
In Conclusion
Some might say that the market of photo editing apps is over-saturated, and that is true enough. But, on the other hand, it also means that a tool that perfectly matches your skill level, budget, preferences, and goals is very likely to be out there.
Here we have covered the most prominent operating systems – Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android – and picked some great apps to crop pictures for each of them. All of them are great in their own right, and we hope that you have found the one that sticks to your fancy.
Photoworks is among the best software in its category, according to a 4.5/5 rating and positive user reviews at Software Advice. To swap faces with PhotoWorks, just follow the steps of this in-depth guide.
This concludes our review. Finding your way through the vast ocean of available options can be tricky, but you are in a perfect place to start. Good luck!
