To resize your document to fit the newly-cropped image, open the Document Properties menu by navigating to File > Document Properties or by pressing Control + Shift + D on your keyboard. Now that you have effectively cropped your image, you’ve probably noticed the gaping void of empty space between your image and the page border. Simply make the needed adjustments to your rectangle and then repeat the clipping process again before proceeding to the next step. This will bring you back to the previous state where you had your partially transparent rectangle positioned over your image. This means that if you’re unhappy with the crop, you can release it at any point by selecting it and navigating to: Object > Clip > Release.

The good thing about clipping masks is that they’re non-destructive. How the image looks once the clipping mask has been applied. With both objects selected, navigate to: Object > Clip Set. This can be done by Shift-clicking each of them, or by clicking and dragging a selection over both. To create a clipping mask, select both the rectangle and the image. That’s what we’ll be doing with our rectangle and our image. A cookie cutter is used to make cookie dough take the shape of the cutter. It’s similar (in concept) to how a cookie cutter works. In short, clipping masks allow you to make one object take the shape of another object. Once you have your rectangle placed exactly over the areas of your image you’d like to crop, it’s time to create a clipping mask, which is the tool required when using Inkscape to crop an image. To make your adjustments more precise, you can zoom in on the image by holding Control on your keyboard and rolling up and down on the mouse wheel to zoom in and out respectively.

Now you can grab the Select tool (keyboard shortcut: S) - located at the top of your tools list - and use it to adjust the width, height, and location of your rectangle until it is placed exactly over the area of the image you’d like to crop. Reducing the opacity of the rectangle will allow you to see where the image is located beneath it.

Make a vector image inkscape