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I've read a few tutorials but I'm still new to Illustrator. Currently, I am trying to work with a sketch that I am trying to position on the artboard. If I were to resize the entire shape the sketch is drawn on to within the bounds of the artboard, however, the sketch would be too small. How can I crop or otherwise keep the sketch the same size as it is in the image below, while keeping the shape it is on within the artboard?

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4 Answers 4

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for <= Illustrator CS6

You can not crop raster images in Illustrator. At least not with the standard Adobe installation.

You can utilize clipping masks if that helps.

  • Draw a rectangle above the raster image.
  • Select both the rectangle and the image
  • choose Object > Clipping Mask > Make.

This will hide a portion of the raster image but will not remove it.

If you need the raster image cropped, standard procedure is to crop the raster image in a raster editing application, such as Photoshop, before placing or importing the image into Illustrator.

There is a third party plug in titled Rasterino from www.astutegraphics.com which will crop raster images from within Illustrator.

For >= Illustrator CC

Select the image, and click the Crop Image button on the Control bar across the top of the screen.

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You CAN crop raster images in Illustrator.

  • Draw a rectangle above the raster image.
  • Select both the rectangle and the image
  • choose Object > Clipping Mask > Make.
  • change blending mode to "darken" from transparency tab
  • choose Object > Flatten Transparency..> OK
  • Choose Object > Expand...

Now you have trimmed raster object.

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    This is the best answer for anyone wanting to avoid using Photoshop or Rasterino/other plugins. Process is still a little tedious. Adobe should simplify this and just add a 'crop' function to Illustrator but this does work and making a macro helps.
    – HaulinOats
    Jun 1, 2017 at 20:44
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    This is the best answer. I used this method for Adobe Illustrator CS6
    – monsur.hoq
    Sep 21, 2018 at 20:03
  • This is truly an amazing answer!
    – WraithKenny
    Jan 7, 2019 at 21:59
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here's a script that crops raster images, all it needs is a rectangle that serves as the "cutter path", place this path on top of the image, select both objects, run the script. The script will rasterize the image, discarding what's outside the bounds of the "cutter path"

http://aiscripts.com/image-crop-script/

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The easiest way to "crop" the canvas to a selection in Adobe Illustrator that I could find (without a very long, overly-complicated, and tedious process), is to:

  1. Select all the parts of your object and make a group (right-click > Group);
  2. File > Document Setup... > Edit Artboards;
  3. Drag each corner of the Artboard so that it snaps to the corresponding edge/corner of the image, then press Esc (Escape key);
  4. Save/Export the image when ready.

N.B. These instructions work for Adobe Illustrator CC 2017.1.0 (21.1.0). I'm not sure if there are any differences in previous versions.

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