Shrinking an image is not just typing a smaller number. You build a target canvas, bring the photo in, scale it proportionally with Free Transform, then soften the empty bands with a gradient mask — the size lands exactly and the frame still looks full. It is the standard move for avatars and covers in Online PS.
1️⃣ Create the target canvas (500 × 500 px)
- Open Online PS and choose File → New from the top menu (or press Ctrl+N).
- In the dialog that appears, fill in:
- Width: 500 px
- Height: 500 px
- Resolution: 72 pixels/inch (for screen use — the default is fine)
- Color Mode: RGB, Depth 8 bit/channel
- Background Contents: White
- Click Create and you have a 500 × 500 white canvas.
2️⃣ Import the photo you want to shrink
- From the Photoshop top menu choose File → Open (or press Ctrl+O).
- Pick an image stored on your computer (960 × 600 px, for example) and click Open.
- Take the Move tool (V) and drag the photo into the 500 × 500 canvas you just made — or drag the photo layer onto the target canvas in the Layers panel on the left.
3️⃣ Scale the photo down with Free Transform
- Select the photo layer and press Ctrl+T (or choose Edit → Free Transform). A transform box appears around the image.
- To scale proportionally, hold Shift (in recent Photoshop versions Shift does the opposite — the default is already proportional, so only press it when you want to turn proportion off), then drag any corner handle inward until the image is a little taller than the canvas (a bit over 500 px in height; the width gets cropped on its own).
- When the size looks right, press Enter (or click the check mark in the options bar) to commit the transform.
- If the visible area feels off-centre, grab the Move tool (V) again and nudge the photo so the important part sits in the middle of the canvas.
Tip:
- In Photoshop, dragging a corner is proportional by default; hold Shift when you want it not to be.
- Undo with Ctrl+Z, redo with Ctrl+Shift+Z.
4️⃣ Make the empty bands look intentional (gradient mask)(optional)
The canvas is square while the source is 960 × 600 (≈1.6), so keeping the full width leaves empty bands above and below. Here is a layer mask + gradient trick that lets the blank areas fade out instead of ending in a hard line.
- Make sure the photo layer is still selected.
- Click the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel (the rectangle with a circle in the middle) to give the photo a mask.
- With the new mask selected, switch to the Gradient tool (G), set the gradient type in the options bar to “Linear Gradient”, and choose Black → White (black hides, white shows).
- Drag once from the top edge downward (about a quarter of the height) to fade the top band, then drag once from the bottom edge upward to fade the bottom band.
- If you want two independent gradients (one for the top, one for the bottom), you can:
- Put the current layer and its mask into a group (Ctrl+G).
- Duplicate the layer inside the group, add a second mask to the copy, and repeat the gradient.
- When it looks right, save with File → Export As → PNG / JPEG. Tick “Maximum quality” on export.
Quick tip: if you would rather not drag two gradients by hand, run “Filter → Blur → Gaussian Blur” on the mask instead and soften the hard edge gradually — the transition ends up just as natural.
References
- Online PS
- Adobe official documentation
- Photoshop tutorial sites