How to cut a photo in a circle

You would really like to create a circular avatar, to be able to use it on a forum you are subscribed to, but not being very familiar with photo editing software, you don’t know how to do it. Is that so? Well… that is, bad, but know that I’m here to help you anyway! With today’s guide, in fact, we will see together how to cut a photo in a circle using some of the most popular photo editing software, online services and apps for smartphones and tablets suitable for the purpose. Try the solutions listed below and you won’t regret it!

Index

• How to cut a photo in a circle with Photoshop
• How to cut a photo in a circle with Illustrator
• How to crop a circle photo with PowerPoint
• How to crop a photo in a circle with GIMP
• How to cut a circle photo with Paint
• How to crop a circle photo online
• App to cut a photo in a circle
  • Photoshop Express (Android / iOS / iPadOS)
  • Pixelmator (iOS / iPadOS / macOS)
  • Other apps to crop a photo in a circle

How to cut a photo in a circle with Photoshop

Is Photoshop , the powerful photo editing program developed by Adobe, installed on your PC ? So what are you waiting for to use its crop tools to get great circular photos? I guarantee you that the operation you need to perform is really very simple.

To begin with, start Photoshop on your computer and import the image you want to crop into it, selecting the Open item from the File menu . Next, right click on the Rectangular Marquee tool located at the top of the toolbar (on the left side of the screen) and choose the Elliptical Marquee Tool from the menu that appears.

At this point, hold down the left mouse button and “draw” the photo area to be cropped in the circle (holding down the Shift key on the keyboard while creating the selection you will get a perfect circle). For more information on how to select on Photoshop , I refer you to my dedicated guide.

Once you have selected the portion of the photo to enclose in the circle, copy it by selecting the Copy item from the Photoshop Edit menu and paste it into a new image. To do this, select the New … item from the File menu , choose to create a new image with a transparent background by selecting the Transparent item from the Background content menu and complete the operation by selecting the Paste item from the Edit menu .

Finally, save the output image by selecting the Save As … item from the File menu and set PNG or GIF as the destination format , so as to preserve the transparency of the background.

If you would like more information on how to use Photoshop , take a look at the guide I have entirely dedicated to the famous program developed by Adobe.

How to cut a photo in a circle with Illustrator

Have you installed Illustrator on your computer and would like to be able to circle a photo that you have included in your project?

After opening the document of your interest, select the Ellipse tool from the toolbar ( right clicking on the rectangle on the left and selecting it from the menu that opens), then choose No Fill from the Color Picker (bottom left).

Now, holding down the left mouse button, together with the Shift key on the keyboard, draw a circle . Next, click on the Selection Tool attached to the toolbar located on the left, then click on the Select menu > All , then go to the Object menu > Clipping Mask> Create and that’s it. Finally, you just have to export the file in a format you like, by going to the File menu > Export> Export as .

How to crop a circle photo with PowerPoint

Are you working on a PowerPoint project and want to crop a photo in a circle? I guarantee you that this is not only feasible, but it is also very simple to implement.

After opening the project of your interest, select the photo you intend to crop in a circle by clicking on it; then click on the Image Format menu that appeared at the top and press the symbol (∨) next to the Crop button (at the top).

Subsequently, select the items Crop shape> Oval in the opened menu and call up the same menu to select the items Aspect Ratio> 1: 1 (this last operation is not necessary if the “starting” photo is already square). Once this is done, click on an “empty” point on the slide and that’s it.

If you want to learn more about the general functioning of PowerPoint, I refer you to reading the tutorial that I have entirely dedicated to the famous Microsoft program.

How to crop a photo in a circle with GIMP

Another solution that I recommend you to try to cut a photo in a circle is GIMP , a very famous photo editing software that is considered by many to be the best free and open source alternative to the much more expensive Photoshop (which I told you a little while ago). . It offers some easy-to-use cropping tools with which you can apply circular cropping to your shots quite easily.

After installing GIMP , open the File menu , select the Open … item from the latter and choose the image to which you want to apply the circular crop. Then open the channels window (by clicking on the relevant item on the right), and check that there is an alpha channel; if not, open the Layer menu , select Transparency and then Add alpha channel .

Now you have to crop the image: then select the Elliptical Marquee tool from the tool panel on the left and draw a circle on the portion of the image you want to keep. Then right-click on the part of the image you have selected and click on the items Select> Invert from the menu that opens. Next, right-click anywhere in the image and select the Edit> Cut items from the context menu. Et-voila! The photo was cropped correctly.

Now all you have to do is remove the excess background portion and then save your work: right-click again anywhere in the image, click first on the Image item and then on Auto-crop image from the menu that opens.

If you are satisfied with the result, go to the File menu , select the Save as … item and, in the window that opens, choose the format in which to save the output image (to maintain transparency, select the PNG or GIF format ) and its destination folder. Did you see how simple it was to crop a circle image with GIMP?

How to cut a circle photo with Paint

Would you like to know how to cut a photo in a circle with Paint ? I’m sorry, but the famous Microsoft digital painting software does not have any useful functionality for the purpose in question.

The only thing you can try to do is crop a “freehand” circle photo, which I don’t think is what you plan to do. To do this, in any case, you must first open the photo to be edited with Paint, right-clicking on its thumbnail and selecting the items Open with> Paint in the menu that opens.

Then click on the button (∨) placed under the rectangle in the Image section (top), select the wording Freehand and draw a circle on the photo. Finally, right-click on the selection made, choose Invert selection in the menu that opens and drag the excess part of the photo out of the image. Finally, save the output file by clicking on the floppy disk icon (top).

How to crop a circle photo online

Do the solutions I have proposed so far seem rather complicated to use? Would you like to use some online service that allows you to cut photos in a circle quickly and easily? So take a look at Photopea , a service that allows you to apply a circular crop to photos, as well as perform all the main photo editing operations.

It too does not require the use of external plugins to work and is really simple to use. Despite being free, the service allows you to subscribe to a Premium plan starting from $ 3.33 per month, in order to financially support its development and remove the few advertising banners on the page.

To use it, connected to its main page , presses the symbol (x) if necessary to remove the welcome message to the service and open the photo you want to cut into a circle by clicking on the Open item from the Archive menu (top left). Then hover the mouse cursor over the dashed rectangle in the toolbar on the left and select the Elliptical Selection tool .

Then draw the circle at the portion of the image you want to keep (pressing the Shift key will draw a perfect circle), open the Select menu , select the Inverse item and press the Delete button on the keyboard.

Finally, remove the excess background using the Crop Tool always present in the toolbar located on the left and, as soon as you have finished, save the modified image by selecting the items Export as> [format of your interest] from the File menu .

App to cut a photo in a circle

Do you want to crop a circle photo from your smartphone or tablet? Unfortunately, many of the photo editing applications on the stores do not offer ad hoc features that allow you to do this. However, you can crop a photo in a circle using some advanced photo editing apps, such as Adobe Photoshop Mix and Pixelmator – we know both more closely.

Photoshop Express (Android / iOS / iPadOS)

Photoshop Express is an app developed by Adobe, the software house that gave life to the famous Photoshop, and in addition to allowing you to retouch the main parameters of the photos, it also offers the possibility of applying various changes. It doesn’t have a real circular cropping tool built in, but I’ll walk you through a feature that can help you achieve a similar result.

After installing and starting Photoshop Express on your Android device (it is also available on alternative stores for devices without Google services) or iOS / iPadOS , press the Next button 10 times in a row, press the Adobe ID button and log in with your Adobe account or, alternatively, log in through your Google account or through your Facebook account .

Once logged in, press the OK button , grant Photoshop Express the necessary permissions to work and then press the preview of the photo you want to retouch. Then, scroll through the buttons at the bottom, press on the one depicting the frame and select one of those that allow you to see the photo cut in a circle on a white background ( White circle ) or black ( Black circle ). If you are satisfied with the result, press the Next button (top right) and choose the save or share option you want to use.

Pixelmator (iOS / iPadOS / macOS)

If you use an iPhone or an iPad , I advise you to consider Pixelmator , a paid app (at the time of writing, the version for iOS / iPadOS costs 4.99 euros and the one for macOS, available in the Classic version (29 , 99 euros, not native for Apple Silicon chips) and Pro (costs 19.99 euros and is native for Apple Silicon chips).

After installing and starting Pixelmator on your device, press the (+) button located at the top left and choose whether to use an existing photo or to take a new one by pressing one of the items in the menu below. After selecting or taking the photo to be cut into a circle, presses the brush symbol (top), select the Select tool , presses the Rectangular selection item and choose the Elliptical item from the menu that opens.

Subsequently, “draw” the circle around the portion of the image you want to keep, tap on the Elliptical Selection item located at the top and press the Invert item located at the bottom right. Now, tap on the Done item located at the top right, tap on the portion of the image you want to remove (the one “external” to the circle) and press the Delete item from the menu that opens. To conclude, press the brush (top), tap on the Crop item , remove the excess background, press the Apply item , press the Share symbol (top right) and choose where and how to save the output photo.

Other apps to crop a photo in a circle

I conclude the article by listing other apps to cut a photo in a circle . Make good use of it!

• Circle Cutter ( Android ) – app designed specifically for circular cropping of photos to be used on your accounts, as an icon, etc. It’s free, but access to all its features requires in-app purchases starting at € 0.99.
• Round photo ( iOS / iPadOS ) – also this app, available only for Apple devices, is designed to cut photos in a circular way and is completely free (although it must be said that you have to pay 6.99 euros to remove the advertising.
• Canva ( Android / iOS / iPadOS ) – this is a very useful resource for making graphic projects of various kinds which, among other things, also includes tools and functions for circular cropping of photos.