In an example, an image classification system is disclosed. The image classification system modifies an image having a first height and a first width to be input to a convolutional neural network for image classification. The image classification system includes an image resizing module that is configured to resize the image so that the resized image comprises a second height and a second width. An aspect ratio of the resized image corresponds to an aspect ratio of the image having the first height and the first width. The image classification system also includes an alignment module that is configured to modify pixels of a feature map corresponding to the resized image based upon a comparison of a desired feature map size and an actual feature map size.