diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index edac168..57c9eab 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ Versioning: [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.html).
 - Images are downscaled to 1600 px on the long edge before OCR. A 12 MP phone photo (~4000 px) drops to ~1.3 MP, making Tesseract 4-8× faster with no real accuracy loss for printed text. Smaller-than-1600 px inputs are passed through unchanged.
 - Adaptive thresholding (Bradley's method with integral images) binarises the downscaled image before OCR — drops hallucinated text from shadows, gradients, and surface texture on phone photos. Output is pure black-on-white, much closer to the scanned-page input Tesseract was trained on.
 - Per-word confidence filter (≥ 60) drops the low-confidence noise Tesseract still emits. Re-assembles lines from kept words; status line reports how many words were dropped.
+- Crop & rotate modal between image pick and OCR. After choosing an image, a modal pops up with cropperjs's drag-handle crop UI and Rotate left / Rotate right / Reset buttons. EXIF orientation is honoured automatically. Cancel / `Esc` / clicking the backdrop aborts; `Enter` accepts. Library lazy-loaded from esm.sh (no bundling).
 
 ### Fixed
 - "Hot: …" status no longer claims "unloads in X" when the server's `keep_alive` is `-1` (Ollama returns an absurd year-4001 `expires_at`). Threshold: any expiry >7 days drops the suffix and just shows the model name.
diff --git a/static/index.html b/static/index.html
index 7ddd98c..80a8aa2 100644
--- a/static/index.html
+++ b/static/index.html
@@ -190,6 +190,74 @@
     }
     .scan-status.error { color: var(--error); }
 
+    /* Crop / rotate modal (cropperjs lives inside .modal-body) */
+    .modal-backdrop {
+      position: fixed;
+      inset: 0;
+      background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.78);
+      display: flex;
+      align-items: center;
+      justify-content: center;
+      padding: 1rem;
+      z-index: 1000;
+    }
+    .modal {
+      background: var(--bg);
+      border: 1px solid var(--border);
+      border-radius: 8px;
+      width: min(90vw, 900px);
+      max-height: 90vh;
+      display: flex;
+      flex-direction: column;
+    }
+    .modal-header {
+      padding: 0.75rem 1rem;
+      border-bottom: 1px solid var(--border);
+      font-size: 0.85rem;
+      color: var(--muted);
+      letter-spacing: 0.04em;
+    }
+    .modal-body {
+      flex: 1;
+      min-height: 0;
+      max-height: 70vh;
+      background: #000;
+    }
+    .modal-body img { display: block; max-width: 100%; }
+    .modal-footer {
+      padding: 0.75rem 1rem;
+      border-top: 1px solid var(--border);
+      display: flex;
+      gap: 0.5rem;
+      justify-content: space-between;
+      flex-wrap: wrap;
+    }
+    .modal-footer .group {
+      display: flex;
+      gap: 0.5rem;
+      flex-wrap: wrap;
+    }
+    .modal-btn {
+      background: transparent;
+      border: 1px solid var(--border);
+      color: var(--muted);
+      padding: 0.4rem 0.9rem;
+      border-radius: 4px;
+      cursor: pointer;
+      margin: 0;
+      width: auto;
+      font-size: 0.75rem;
+      letter-spacing: 0.04em;
+      text-transform: uppercase;
+    }
+    .modal-btn:hover { border-color: var(--accent); color: var(--fg); }
+    .modal-btn.primary {
+      background: var(--accent);
+      color: #fff;
+      border-color: var(--accent);
+    }
+    .modal-btn.primary:hover { color: #fff; }
+
     /* CodeMirror editor host — matches .output styling so input & output align */
     .cm-editor {
       min-height: 180px;
@@ -329,6 +397,95 @@
       scanStatus.classList.toggle("error", error);
     }
 
+    // Crop + rotate modal. Lazy-loads cropperjs + its CSS from esm.sh on
+    // first use. Resolves with a Blob (cropped, rotation baked in) or null
+    // if the user cancelled.
+    let cropperCssLoaded = false;
+    async function openCropper(file) {
+      if (!cropperCssLoaded) {
+        const link = document.createElement("link");
+        link.rel = "stylesheet";
+        link.href = "https://esm.sh/cropperjs@1/dist/cropper.min.css";
+        document.head.appendChild(link);
+        cropperCssLoaded = true;
+      }
+      const { default: Cropper } = await import("https://esm.sh/cropperjs@1");
+
+      return new Promise((resolve) => {
+        const backdrop = document.createElement("div");
+        backdrop.className = "modal-backdrop";
+        const modal = document.createElement("div");
+        modal.className = "modal";
+        const url = URL.createObjectURL(file);
+        modal.innerHTML = `
+          <div class="modal-header">Crop &amp; rotate before OCR</div>
+          <div class="modal-body"><img alt="" /></div>
+          <div class="modal-footer">
+            <div class="group">
+              <button class="modal-btn" data-act="rotL">Rotate left</button>
+              <button class="modal-btn" data-act="rotR">Rotate right</button>
+              <button class="modal-btn" data-act="reset">Reset</button>
+            </div>
+            <div class="group">
+              <button class="modal-btn" data-act="cancel">Cancel</button>
+              <button class="modal-btn primary" data-act="use">Use this</button>
+            </div>
+          </div>
+        `;
+        backdrop.appendChild(modal);
+        document.body.appendChild(backdrop);
+
+        const img = modal.querySelector("img");
+        img.src = url;
+        const cropper = new Cropper(img, {
+          viewMode: 1,
+          autoCropArea: 1,
+          background: false,
+          // Honour EXIF orientation from the phone shot.
+          checkOrientation: true,
+        });
+
+        const cleanup = () => {
+          cropper.destroy();
+          URL.revokeObjectURL(url);
+          backdrop.remove();
+          document.removeEventListener("keydown", onKey);
+        };
+        const finish = (blob) => { cleanup(); resolve(blob); };
+
+        const onKey = (e) => {
+          if (e.key === "Escape") finish(null);
+          else if (e.key === "Enter") emit("use");
+        };
+        document.addEventListener("keydown", onKey);
+
+        function emit(act) {
+          if (act === "rotL")   cropper.rotate(-90);
+          else if (act === "rotR")  cropper.rotate(90);
+          else if (act === "reset") cropper.reset();
+          else if (act === "cancel") finish(null);
+          else if (act === "use") {
+            const canvas = cropper.getCroppedCanvas({
+              // Hand off something Tesseract can chew on without being huge.
+              // preprocessForOCR will downscale further if needed.
+              maxWidth: OCR_MAX_DIM * 2,
+              maxHeight: OCR_MAX_DIM * 2,
+            });
+            canvas.toBlob(blob => finish(blob), "image/png");
+          }
+        }
+
+        modal.addEventListener("click", (e) => {
+          const act = e.target.closest("[data-act]")?.dataset.act;
+          if (act) emit(act);
+        });
+        // Click on backdrop (outside the modal) = cancel
+        backdrop.addEventListener("click", (e) => {
+          if (e.target === backdrop) finish(null);
+        });
+      });
+    }
+
     // Downscale to at most OCR_MAX_DIM on the long edge AND binarise with
     // Bradley's adaptive threshold. Phone photos have gradients, shadows
     // and texture that Tesseract trained on scanned pages doesn't expect,
@@ -427,11 +584,31 @@
       const lang = src === "auto" ? TESS_AUTO : (TESS_LANGS[src] || TESS_AUTO);
 
       scanBtn.disabled = true;
+      setScanStatus("Loading crop editor…");
+
+      let cropped;
+      try {
+        cropped = await openCropper(file);
+      } catch (e) {
+        console.error(e);
+        setScanStatus(`Crop editor failed: ${e.message || e}`, { error: true });
+        scanBtn.disabled = false;
+        scanInput.value = "";
+        return;
+      }
+      if (!cropped) {
+        // User cancelled
+        setScanStatus("");
+        scanBtn.disabled = false;
+        scanInput.value = "";
+        return;
+      }
+
       setScanStatus("Preparing image…");
       const t0 = performance.now();
 
       try {
-        const { blob, w, h, scaled, origLong } = await preprocessForOCR(file);
+        const { blob, w, h, scaled, origLong } = await preprocessForOCR(cropped);
         if (scaled) {
           setScanStatus(`Preprocessed ${origLong}px → ${Math.max(w, h)}px (binarised)`);
         } else {