Marketplaces want square images. Your photos, taken on a phone, are usually tall or wide. Crop them and you risk cutting off part of the product; stretch them and the product looks wrong. Padding is the answer.
Three ways to make an image square
| Method | What happens | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Pad | Whole image kept, space filled with a colour | Product photos — nothing is lost |
| Crop | Frame filled, edges trimmed | The product sits well inside the centre |
| Stretch | Frame filled, image distorted | Almost never for products |
Why padding works for products
A product shot on a white or light background can be padded with white and the join is invisible. The whole product stays in frame, nothing is distorted, and the result meets the square requirement. For a tall product such as a kurti or a bottle, padding adds white space on the sides; for a wide one such as a bedsheet or a laptop sleeve, above and below.
Step by step
- Open the image resizer and add your photos — all of them at once.
- Pick a square preset: 1000 × 1000 or 2000 × 2000.
- Choose Pad (keep whole image).
- Leave the background white, or pick your photo’s background colour.
- Save as JPG and download.
Getting the product size right
Padding keeps everything, including empty space. If your original has a lot of background around the product, the padded square can make the product look small. Marketplaces generally want the product to fill most of the frame. Crop the original loosely around the product first, then pad it to square — the product ends up large and nothing important is lost.
When cropping is fine
If the product sits comfortably in the centre with space on every side, cropping to square fills the frame better than padding. Check the edges after cropping — straps, handles and long sleeves are the usual casualties.
Try it: Make photos square with white padding — free, no signup, runs in your browser.
See also the product image size guide for Meesho, Flipkart and Amazon.