Round pictures are everywhere: profile photos, team pages, avatars in a chat, badges and stickers. To get one, you circle crop an image: a circle is cut out of the rectangle and everything outside it disappears. This circle cropper lets you make any image a circle by dragging a circle over the part you want.
It opens Round image corners with Circle already picked, and the outside of the circle set to Transparent, so the result is a round picture that sits on any background. Nothing is uploaded, it is free, and there is no watermark. Read on for how to place the circle, which format keeps the outside clear, and how to get the size you need.
How to crop a picture into a circle
To circle crop an image here, you place one circle and press one button. The steps:
- Press Select images, or drop one or more pictures onto the page.
- A circle appears in the middle, as wide as 80 % of the picture's shorter side. Everything outside it is dimmed.
- Drag inside the circle to move it over the face or object you want. Drag a corner handle to make it bigger or smaller; it always stays round.
- Under Outside the corners, keep Transparent, or pick White, Ink or any colour from the + swatch.
- Keep Save as on Original, or pick PNG or WebP. While the outside is transparent, JPG is switched off.
- Press Round corners, then save. The file name ends in _circle.
The saved picture is a square exactly as wide as your circle, with the circle touching all four edges. On a transparent background, everything outside the circle is empty, so it shows as a round picture wherever you put it.
Placing the circle for a round profile picture
A circle crop leaves less room than a square, because the corners are lost too. A few habits help a round profile picture look right:
- Put the eyes a little above the middle of the circle, not in the centre.
- Leave a small gap above the head, so the hair is not cut flat by the edge.
- Include the top of the shoulders; a circle that ends at the chin looks cramped.
- For a logo or badge, centre it and leave an even margin all round.
- If a selfie came out reversed, flip the photo before you crop it, so your parting sits on the side people know.
Other changes to the whole picture are also best made before the crop. If a photo came out upside down, the upside down image page shows whether to flip it or turn it, and does both. For a bold badge, invert the photo to get a negative. Save the result, then select it here.
For exact moves, click the circle and use the arrow keys: one pixel at a time, or ten with Shift held. Zoom in with the + key or the zoom buttons under the picture to check the edge, and press 0 to fit it again.
A circular image with a transparent background
Outside the corners decides what fills the space around the circle. Transparent, the default, leaves it empty, which is what you want for a circle PNG on a website, in a slide or on a coloured page. Transparency needs a format that can hold it, so JPG is switched off under Save as, and on Original a JPG or HEIC photo is saved as a PNG.
| Outside the corners | Save as | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Transparent | PNG or WebP | Websites, apps, slides, any coloured background |
| White | Any, JPG included | A white page, a printed document, an email |
| Ink | Any, JPG included | A dark page or a dark theme |
| Your own colour | Any, JPG included | A page with a known background colour |
PNG keeps every pixel and opens almost everywhere. WebP usually makes a smaller file, which helps on a website. A JPG is saved at high quality, but it can only be used with a coloured outside.
Getting the size you need
The round picture comes out at the circle's own size, in the photo's pixels, so a big photo gives a big circle. If a site asks for a set size, such as 400 by 400, resize the result with Resize image: type the width, and with Keep the proportions on the height follows. A PNG keeps its transparent outside when resized and saved as PNG.
Some sites cut a square profile picture into a circle themselves. If yours does, a plain square may be all you need: crop image to square makes one, and the site does the rounding. It still pays to make an image round yourself when you control the background, such as on your own website or in a document.
If you want the whole picture with soft corners instead of a circle, switch Shape to Rounded and drag the Corner radius. That is the other half of the same tool, and the Round image corners page explains it.
Many circles at once, privately
Making avatars for a whole team? The circle cropper takes up to 100 pictures. The circle you place on the first one is placed on each of the others at the same relative position and size, and stays round on every picture. The button counts them (Round 9 pictures), and Save all as ZIP saves the results together. If a circle would be smaller than 8 pixels on a tiny picture, that one fails with the reason Too small to crop, and the rest carry on.
This works best when the photos were taken the same way, such as staff photos against the same wall. For photos framed differently, run them one at a time so each circle sits where it should.
- It runs in your browser: the picture is never uploaded, and our server does no picture work.
- It is free, with no account and no watermark. Image tools are not counted in the daily limit, which applies to document conversions only.
- The saved picture is drawn fresh, with no location, camera or date details.
- It works in current Chrome, Edge and Firefox. Very large pictures may be too big for your browser.
Make your round picture now
To circle crop an image, drag the circle over the face or logo, size it with a corner, keep the outside Transparent, and press Round corners. Save as PNG or WebP for a clear outside, and resize afterwards for a set size.
It is free and private, and nothing leaves your device. Select your picture above to start.
