Circle Crop Image
To crop a picture into a circle, add it, zoom until the subject fills the frame, add a white ring if it will sit on a dark background, and download. The result is always a PNG, because only PNG keeps the corners transparent; a JPG would show the circle as a square. Nothing is uploaded.
Updated
How to use Circle Crop Image
- 1Add the photo.
- 2Zoom in if the subject needs to fill more of the frame.
- 3Add a white ring if the circle will sit on a dark background.
- 4Download the PNG.
How it works
The circle is cut from the largest square the picture allows, centred, so a wide photo crops to its middle rather than being squashed into shape. Zooming scales the source inside that square, which is how you bring a face forward without changing the output size.
The result is always a PNG. That is deliberate: JPG has no transparency, so the corners outside the circle would be filled with a colour and the effect would be lost the moment the picture sat on a different background.
Most sites that display round avatars actually store a square image and round it with a mask. Cropping the circle yourself is what makes it look right in the places that do not, such as documents, slide decks and printed material.
Images are decoded by the browser, redrawn on a canvas and re-encoded on your own machine. Nothing is uploaded, so there is no waiting on a queue and no copy of your photos anywhere else.
Tips and common mistakes
- Use a photo where the face is roughly in the middle; the crop is taken from a centred square.
- Zoom in until the face fills most of the circle — small faces get lost at avatar sizes.
- Add a white ring when the circle will sit on a dark background.
- Keep the PNG; saving it as JPG would fill the transparent corners and bring the square back.