Crop to Square for a Circle

Why does the mask turn into an oval?

A circle mask in a slide or a document is usually an ellipse stretched to the picture’s box. A 1600 by 900 photo gives that ellipse a 1600 by 900 box, so the shape is wider than it is tall. The same mask on a square looks round because the box is square. PowerPoint’s Crop to Shape and the mask beside Crop in Google Slides both follow the picture you inserted. The guides for those apps spell out the menus. This page’s job is the file you insert before that menu.

Side handles create the same oval later. A square PNG becomes an oval if you drag the left or right edge. Resize from a corner, or type the same number for width and height. The square crop cannot protect a file from a stretch you apply after the download.

What square does a 1200 by 800 photo produce?

The editor takes a square out of the middle. At zoom 1 the side is the shorter side of the photo. On a 1200 by 800 picture that side is 800 pixels, starting 200 pixels from the left and 0 from the top. That square is 66.67% of the original photo. The left and right strips are the part a later circle never needed.

Zoom 2 takes a tighter square, 400 pixels, from 400 pixels across and 200 pixels down. Put the face in that tighter square when the portrait will be an avatar. The table uses the same crop function as the download, so the numbers are the crop, not a sketch.

How much of the photo survives the later circle?

A circle drawn later on that square keeps 78.54% of the square, which is 52.36% of the original 1200 by 800 photo. The geometry page explains the circle’s share of its own square. The step on this page is the one before that: hand the other app a square, or the mask is calculated on a rectangle and the shape goes oval.

Original size uses the crop’s own side and does not enlarge a tiny picture. A request above 4096 pixels on a side is clamped, and the editor says so. 512 is a practical square when the destination has not published a size. Where a help page names a size, the size chart quotes that figure instead of this default.

Where should the subject sit?

The other app will hide the corners of this square when it applies a circle. Anything that must stay visible belongs inside the square inscribed in that circle, about 70.7% of the side. On the 800 pixel square from the example, that inner square is 566 pixels. On a 512 pixel export it is 362 pixels. Place the eyes and the mouth inside it, not merely inside the outer square.

Leave a little cheek and hair inside that inner square so a ring or a sloppy mask in the next app does not slice the head. If the subject is already tight, do not zoom so far that the ears fall into the corners the circle will cut. A group of people almost always fails this test. Crop one face, or accept that the later circle will be a crowd of dots.

What should I download?

PNG is the default. The square export is the photo from edge to edge, so there is no clear rim to preserve. JPG is the flat file when a slide or a form wants a photo with no alpha. WebP is the smaller file when the destination accepts it. Square stays checked when you open this page. Uncheck it and the same framing downloads as a circle, with a clear outside on PNG. Use that when you want the finished round file and no second mask.

Use the oval page when the frame itself should be 4:5 or 3:4. That ellipse is a choice. It is not this square, and it will not stop a slide from stretching a wide photo. Use the home editor when the circle itself is the file you will upload, and this page when another program insists on drawing the circle.

How do I hand the file to the other app?

Insert the download, then apply the circle. In PowerPoint and Word, Microsoft’s article describes Crop to Shape after the picture is on the slide. In Google Slides, the help page describes a mask beside Crop. Do the square step first. If you mask the camera original, you are back to the oval. The PowerPoint guide and the Slides guide keep the menu detail. Why the circle becomes an oval is the diagnosis if you already have a stretched shape.

The photo is decoded in this browser and saved with a download. It is not posted to circlecropimage.app. A GIF contributes its first frame, and a note says so. HEIC is refused with a message to convert it to JPG. The saved file is named for a square while Square is checked, and for a circle if you turn that off. Close the tab and the picture is gone.

When is this the file to export?

Crop to square for a circle when the next program will draw the round mask itself. Crop to square for a circle here, save the file, and only then open PowerPoint, Slides, or Docs. A finished circle PNG is the other export, and it belongs on the home editor when you do not want a second mask.

Frequently asked questions