New Chrome OS Update Lets You Resize Pictures Natively. Awesome.

Want to learn how to resize images on your Chromebook?

Well, you can’t really. At least not yet.

Last Updated: 7/31/17.

Chrome’s native image editor can’t resize images

Chromebooks are the bare basics of what you need in a laptop to make it work.

They’re not known for monster specs, or innovative design, or super crazy design.

Chromebooks are simple. They’re fast, efficient, and secure.

But that’s not always a good thing…the “simple” part, specifically.

Why?

Because they’re not really suited to run the high-end image editors out there, nor do they have any native editors built-in to Chrome OS.

(But then again, Chromebooks will be able to run Photoshop soon as Adobe states it’s working on a cloud-based version of it just for Chrome.)

As of now, if you want to add filters, make pictures smaller or bigger, rotate them or do anything else, you’ll need an app. There’ s really no other way to get around this.

For the purpose of this article, we’re going to focus on the built-in native image software (or lack thereof) and discuss what to expect in the coming update.

New Chrome OS update adds image resizing to the native photo viewer

If you’ve played around with it before, you may notice that you can’t really resize the image. You can perform basic manipulations- colors, brightness, contrast, etc. But resizing the image wasn’t possible.

Now, with a coming update, resizing images in Chrome OS will add the ability to resize images in a manner that keeps the aspect ratio automatically.

This means your image won’t be hard-cropped, where a portion of the image gets cut off. Your photos will be cropped like how you expect them to. The pictures can be resized to maintain the original horizontal and vertical proportions of the image, as well as unconstrained which allows you to stretch the image in any direction.

You’d expect this to be something that’s built-in by default, right?

(Don’t tell me it’s only me that thinks that way.)

This doesn’t seem like much, but it’s a nice addition to the image editor. If you’ve played with it, you’d understand. It improves the editor with a much-needed function that you’d expect from any image editor. Hooray.

Update: The native image viewer can do a little more than crop pictures. You can also adjust brightness and contrast as well.

Download image editors from Google Play

Of course, you can always install photo editing software from the Google Play store, which is coming to Chromebooks- assuming your Chromebook is eligible for the Play Store update.

If not, then use the Chrome Web Store and you’ll find a whole bunch of image editors there that can do what the built-in program can do, and a whole lot more- such as collages, stamps, layers, adjustments, and more.

They’re basically the closest you can get to Photoshop alternatives for Chromebooks.

Besides that, Chrome OS doesn’t have much else to offer for those who take a lot of pictures or are photographers.

Chrome OS has been constantly improving and has gone from a bulky, ugly laptop with high-Internet dependence to a sleek, fast, and omni-functional device.

How do I resize an image on a Chromebook?

So, to answer your initial question- how do you resize images on a Chromebook?

You can do any of the following to get your images to the size you want:

1. Wait for the Chrome OS update to add this feature
2. Download an app from the Play Store if your Chromebook is eligible
3. Download an app from the Chrome web store (all Chromebooks should be eligible)

Of course, you really can’t do it natively without downloading an additional app, at least for now.

Update: It’s live. You can now use your default image viewer to crop pictures on Chrome OS.

No need for any additional apps if you’re just going to do some basic picture tweaking. You can do it all without needing to install anything.

The update is coming

Well, there you have it.

Another thoughtful update for Chromebook users.

When Google can work on both important updates as well minor updates like this one, it shows they’re definitely on top of their game. (And especially when they have the time to add an interactive Dinosaur game when you have no WiFi connection.)

• About the Author

About Andy Z.

Andy is a casual-hardcore Chrome OS fan and contributes to the site regularly. He likes computers, tech, sports cars, videogames, and of course, Chromebooks. Thinker. Introvert. Geek. You can find him on Twitter (@platytech), or send him an email (check the "Contact Us" page).