Cropping a photo into a circle gives you a clean round avatar with transparent corners. Here is how to center a face, pick the right size, and export a round PNG.
A round avatar only looks right when the face is centered and the corners are truly transparent rather than white. The circle cropper masks your photo to a perfect circle and exports a PNG with see-through corners, so the result sits cleanly on any background — a profile header, a dark app, a colored card.
Drag the round frame so the face sits in the middle, then resize to include a little space around it. Platforms often shrink avatars, and a face cropped too tight feels cramped. The live round preview shows exactly what will be kept and what the circle hides, so you can adjust before downloading. For people shots, aim the eyes slightly above center.
A 512×512 PNG is a safe, sharp size for most profile slots — type those pixels if you want an exact output. Always export as PNG (or WebP) so the transparent corners survive; JPG would fill them with white. For platform-specific avatars, see the profile pic cropper or the Discord avatar cropper.
Circular crops appear all over the web: profile pictures on Discord, X, Instagram and LinkedIn; round app icons; team headshots on an About page; circular badges and stickers; and avatars in chat apps and forums. In almost every case the platform displays a circle but expects a square upload, so the safest file is a square image with the subject centered — or, better, a genuinely round PNG with transparent corners so it looks right even where the service does not mask it. That is exactly what the circle cropper produces.
For the best result, start from a high-resolution photo so the circle is not soft, and center the face with a little margin so nothing is clipped when the avatar is shrunk. Keep the export as PNG or WebP so the corners stay transparent — a circle saved as JPG comes out as a circle on a white square. A 512×512 output suits most profile slots; type those pixels for an exact size. The edge is smoothed automatically, so it stays clean rather than jagged. For a square avatar instead, the 1:1 cropper does the job, and the profile pic cropper adds platform sizes.
A few things trip people up with round crops. Saving as JPG is the big one — it fills the transparent corners with white, so the circle arrives on a square block; always export PNG or WebP. Cropping too tightly is another: platforms shrink avatars, and a face that fills the whole circle feels cramped, so leave a little margin. Starting from a small image makes the circle look soft once it is scaled up, so use the largest source you have. Finally, an off-center face looks unbalanced in a circle; use the live preview to place it in the middle, with the eyes slightly above center, before you download.
Go to the circle cropper and drop your photo in.
Drag and resize the round frame, leaving a little margin.
Export at 512×512 (or your size) as a transparent PNG.
Use the circle cropper: drop your photo in, center it, and download a transparent round PNG. No charge, no upload.
Yes, when you export PNG or WebP. The image is genuinely round, not a circle on a white square.
512×512 PNG is a safe, sharp default. Type exact pixels if a platform needs a specific size.
Center the face and leave a margin; the round preview shows what the circle hides so you can adjust.
No. The circle crop is made in your browser; your photo never leaves your device.