A method of image retargeting is provided. The method includes obtaining a source image, obtaining a target size for a retargeted image based on the source image, generating a two-dimensional importance map for the source image, generating, based on the two-dimensional importance map and the target size, a warping mesh having a distortion metric below a threshold value, determining whether a size of the warping mesh corresponds to the target size, and based on the size of the warping mesh being determined to correspond to the target size, rendering the retargeted image by applying the warping mesh to the source image.