React application interface showing image cropping tool with a cat in the background

Crop and Zoom React Images Easily with react-easy-crop

The Gray Cat
The Gray Cat

React Easy Crop is a powerful and user-friendly React component that allows developers to implement image and video cropping functionality with ease. This library provides a seamless way to add drag, zoom, and rotate interactions to your React applications, making it an excellent choice for projects that require image manipulation features.

Features

React Easy Crop comes packed with a variety of features that make it stand out:

  • Support for drag, zoom, and rotate interactions
  • Provides crop dimensions in both pixels and percentages
  • Compatible with various image formats (JPEG, PNG, GIF) as URL or base64 string
  • Supports HTML5 video formats
  • Mobile-friendly design

Installation

To get started with React Easy Crop, you can install it using npm or yarn:

npm install react-easy-crop

or

yarn add react-easy-crop

Basic Usage

Here’s a simple example of how to use React Easy Crop in your React application:

import { useState } from 'react'
import Cropper from 'react-easy-crop'

const ImageCropper = () => {
  const [crop, setCrop] = useState({ x: 0, y: 0 })
  const [zoom, setZoom] = useState(1)

  const onCropComplete = (croppedArea, croppedAreaPixels) => {
    console.log(croppedArea, croppedAreaPixels)
  }

  return (
    <div style={{ position: 'relative', width: '100%', height: '300px' }}>
      <Cropper
        image="https://example.com/your-image.jpg"
        crop={crop}
        zoom={zoom}
        aspect={4 / 3}
        onCropChange={setCrop}
        onZoomChange={setZoom}
        onCropComplete={onCropComplete}
      />
    </div>
  )
}

In this example, we create a basic image cropper component. The Cropper is wrapped in a container with position: relative to ensure it fills the container rather than the whole page.

Advanced Usage

React Easy Crop offers several advanced features and customization options:

Customizing Aspect Ratio

You can easily change the aspect ratio of the crop area:

<Cropper
  image="https://example.com/your-image.jpg"
  aspect={16 / 9} // Set to 16:9 aspect ratio
  // ... other props
/>

Rotation

Enable rotation functionality by adding the rotation prop:

const [rotation, setRotation] = useState(0)

<Cropper
  image="https://example.com/your-image.jpg"
  rotation={rotation}
  onRotationChange={setRotation}
  // ... other props
/>

Custom Crop Shape

You can create a circular crop area by setting the cropShape prop:

<Cropper
  image="https://example.com/your-image.jpg"
  cropShape="round"
  // ... other props
/>

Restricting Crop Area

Limit the crop area to a specific part of the image:

<Cropper
  image="https://example.com/your-image.jpg"
  restrictPosition={false}
  // ... other props
/>

Handling the Cropped Image

To actually crop the image based on the user’s selection, you’ll need to implement a separate function. Here’s a basic example:

const createImage = (url) =>
  new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    const image = new Image()
    image.addEventListener('load', () => resolve(image))
    image.addEventListener('error', (error) => reject(error))
    image.src = url
  })

const getCroppedImg = async (imageSrc, pixelCrop) => {
  const image = await createImage(imageSrc)
  const canvas = document.createElement('canvas')
  const ctx = canvas.getContext('2d')

  canvas.width = pixelCrop.width
  canvas.height = pixelCrop.height

  ctx.drawImage(
    image,
    pixelCrop.x,
    pixelCrop.y,
    pixelCrop.width,
    pixelCrop.height,
    0,
    0,
    pixelCrop.width,
    pixelCrop.height
  )

  return new Promise((resolve) => {
    canvas.toBlob((blob) => {
      resolve(URL.createObjectURL(blob))
    }, 'image/jpeg')
  })
}

You can then use this function in your component:

const onCropComplete = async (croppedArea, croppedAreaPixels) => {
  const croppedImage = await getCroppedImg(imageUrl, croppedAreaPixels)
  console.log('Cropped image:', croppedImage)
}

Conclusion

React Easy Crop provides a robust solution for implementing image cropping functionality in React applications. With its intuitive API and extensive customization options, it’s an excellent choice for developers looking to add image manipulation features to their projects. By following this guide, you should now have a solid understanding of how to integrate and use React Easy Crop in your applications, enabling you to create powerful and user-friendly image editing interfaces.

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