The Easiest Way to Crop Images Into a Circle
There are so many ways to crop images into circles, sometimes it can become an endless pit of information to consume, and in the end, you still don’t have the information to do what you need. I have been here so many times when I was trying to learn graphic design techniques – all I wanted was the most straightforward and simple technique so I could move on to the rest of my work. What I needed was a quick and easy tool to use.
BeFunky’s Graphic Designer was designed with you in mind, making complex techniques simple. Simply by adding a circle graphic to your image from our Graphics menu, you can turn this circle or turn any shape into a clipping mask.
What Is a Clipping Mask?
Clipping Masks connect multiple layers together to create a shared mask based on the shape of the bottommost layer. Simply speaking, it means that you can create a virtual stamp with any shape and rather than seeing ink as the shape, you can have any image reveal itself as the shape.
Using a clipping mask is quick and easy. We are going to show you how to do this via BeFunky’s Graphic Designer.
How to Create Circle Images
Creating circle images is easy with BeFunky’s Clipping Mask feature. To get started, head to BeFunky’s Graphic Designer and select either a blank canvas or a template. We are going to select a YouTube Thumbnail template, since we are wanting to (hypothetically) update one of our videos with a newer thumbnail. Make sure that before you add in your clipping mask, you edit the text and information on the thumbnail. If you need help with this, check out this article.
Step 1: Add a Circle Graphic
Once you have the template you want, head to the Graphics tab in the left-hand menu. Select the circle from the Basic Shapes menu. Once you click on it, the circle will be automatically added to your canvas.
We are going to add a few circles to this YouTube thumbnail to show the different types of at-home spa tips – this adds context to the image, making it easier for someone to see if it is a video they would want to watch.
Step 2: Add the Image to the Circle
Select Image Manager in the left-hand menu. If you have photos to upload, select Computer. If you need extra imagery to use, select Search Stock Images to select some images from our collection of hundreds of free stock images! When you click on these images, they will be automatically added to your Image Manager.
After you are done selecting, click on one of your images and drag and drop it over one of your circles. You will see the circle turn light blue to indicate you are turning it into a clipping mask.
Step 3: Adjust the Clipping Mask Crop
The cool thing about using this method to crop your images into circles is that you can adjust the crop and composition of the images in a couple of easy clicks! To do this, simply double-click on one of the circle images. You will see the image within crop mark indicators. You can drag any of these corners outward to increase the size of the image and then click and drag the image to adjust the crop.
When you are finished cropping, press Enter on your keyboard to apply the adjustments.
Step 4: Add Design Effects
From here, you can add different design effects to your circles as well if you want or need them to stand out. Simply, select one of your circles and add these effects from the Image Properties menu that appears. We added a bold outline to our images.
Step 5: Save the Design
When you are all finished, make sure to save your design! To do this, select Save at the top of your screen and then select Computer.
As you can see, it is really that easy to add a circle-cropped image to a design of yours. You can do this on posters, social media posts, ads, and more!
Turn Images Into Circles With Clipping Masks
You can easily crop your images into circles with the Clipping Mask tool if that is what you’re after. However, if you want to turn your images into different shapes, check out this article to see how it is done on both BeFunky’s mobile and desktop Photo Editor.
