This site is mobile accessible. Press the "Tap Here" button to use a smaller font-size. Tap Here!

Smartphone icons created by Freepik - Flaticon

14.1 CSS Object-fit

The CSS object-fit property is used to specify how an <img> or <video> should be resized to fit its container.

The CSS object-fit Property

The CSS object-fit property is used to specify how an <img> or <video> should be resized to fit its container. This property tells the content to fill the container in a variety of ways; such as "preserve that aspect ratio" or "stretch up and take up as much space as possible". Look at the following image from Paris. This image is 400 pixels wide and 300 pixels high:

However, if we style the image above to be half its width (200 pixels) and same height (300 pixels), it will look like this:

Example 1: Image without object-fit

img {
  width: 200px;
  height: 300px;
}

We see that the image is being squished to fit the container of 200x300 pixels (its original aspect ratio is destroyed). Here is where the object-fit property comes in. The object-fit property can take one of the following values:

• fill - This is default. The image is resized to fill the given dimension. If necessary, the image will be stretched or squished to fit
• contain - The image keeps its aspect ratio, but is resized to fit within the given dimension
• cover - The image keeps its aspect ratio and fills the given dimension. The image will be clipped to fit
• none - The image is not resized
• scale-down - the image is scaled down to the smallest version of none or contain

Using object-fit: cover;

If we use object-fit: cover; the image keeps its aspect ratio and fills the given dimension. The image will be clipped to fit:

Example 2: Using object-fit: cover

img {
  width: 200px;
  height: 300px;
  object-fit: cover;

Using object-fit: contain;

If we use object-fit: contain; the image keeps its aspect ratio, but is resized to fit within the given dimension:

Example 3: Using object-fit: contain

img {
  width: 200px;
  height: 300px;
  object-fit: contain;
}

Using object-fit: fill;

If we use object-fit: fill; the image is resized to fill the given dimension. If necessary, the image will be stretched or squished to fit:

Example 4: Using object-fit: fill

 img {
  width: 200px;
  height: 300px;
  object-fit: fill;
}

Using object-fit: none;

If we use object-fit: none; the image is not resized:

Example 5: Using object-fit: none

img {
  width: 200px;
  height: 300px;
  object-fit: none;
}

Using object-fit: scale-down;

If we use object-fit: scale-down; the image is scaled down to the smallest version of none or contain:

Example 6: Using object-fit: scale-down

img {
  width: 200px;
  height: 300px;
  object-fit: scale-down;
}

Another Example

Here we have two images and we want them to fill the width of 50% of the browser window and 100% of the height. In the following example we do NOT use object-fit, so when we resize the browser window, the aspect ratio of the images will be destroyed:

Example 7: Images without object-fit

In the next example, we use object-fit: cover;, so when we resize the browser window, the aspect ratio of the images is preserved:

Example 8: Using object-fit: cover part 2

CSS object-fit More Examples

The following example demonstrates all the possible values of the object-fit property in one example:

Example 9: The object-fit property - all values

.fill {object-fit: fill;}
.contain {object-fit: contain;}
.cover {object-fit: cover;}
.scale-down {object-fit: scale-down;}
.none {object-fit: none;}

CSS Object-* Properties

The following table lists the CSS object-* properties:

Property	Description
object-fit	Specifies how an <img> or <video> should be resized to fit its container
object-position	Specifies how an <img> or <video> should be positioned with x/y coordinates inside its "own content box"