Tip
The rule to remember: CivAll never crops on its own. You open the optimize tools, you’re shown a suggestion, and you can adjust it or leave the image alone.
Opening the optimize tools
When you attach an image, each selected network’s image requirements are checked. Nothing interrupts you — the tools are there when you want them:
| Where | What you see |
|---|---|
| On an image, on a network’s tab | A crop button on the image card: Optimize for [network], or Edit crop once a crop is applied. It opens the Optimize image editor. |
| On the All tab, with several networks selected | A tile per network framing, each with a Crop / Edit crop button, plus Optimize all crops when any network is off its recommended format. |
| The file is simply too large | Nothing to decide — see File size below. |
Optimize all crops sets every network’s crop to that network’s recommended format in one click, without opening the editor.
Crop or Fit
In the editor, pick a format for the network — its recommended format is marked, and Original leaves the image as uploaded — then choose a Method. The two are offered as equals, because which one is right depends entirely on the picture.
- Crop fills the frame, so the edges may be trimmed. You can move the image, zoom, and rotate it in 90-degree steps; the frame stays locked to the format you picked. Zoom is limited so the crop stays above the network’s minimum size, and a format the photo is too small for can’t be selected. If a crop still ends up below the network’s minimum, you’re warned that it will be upscaled to fit and may look a little soft.
- Fit keeps the whole image and adds a background, so nothing is cut. Choose the image’s dominant color, white, black, a shade from the image’s palette, any custom color to match your brand, or a blurred copy of the image itself.
Tip
For flyers, agendas, and event graphics, reach for Fit. On that kind of content the edges usually are the information — the meeting time, the phone number — and cropping is exactly what you don’t want.
A different version for each network
One uploaded image can carry a separate crop per network — a tall 4:5 for Instagram and a wide 16:9 for X, from the same photo. The editor lists every selected network so you can set each one’s format in turn, and Optimize all sets every network to its recommended format. Editing one network never affects another.
Switching between Crop and Fit is non-destructive — your original is kept, so you can go back and forth without losing anything, and Reset to original removes the framing altogether.
File size
Oversized files are compressed automatically, with no prompt, because there’s no judgment call to make — compression only ever makes a file smaller and never changes its shape. That’s the line between the two: compression fixes weight, the optimize tools fix shape.
If you leave an image alone
The image publishes as it is, wherever the network accepts it. The Guide still tells you when a network will crop it — for example, “Instagram crops feed photos taller than 4:5 — part of this image may be cut off.”
Warning
Animated GIFs sit outside this tool: they are never offered the optimize tools or modified (they still publish normally).
Posts with several images are supported — the editor (Optimize images) lets you step through each photo.