In most cases, you might need to crop photos into a circle to get a beautiful profile picture, create stickers for printing or maybe you want to use some rounded images in the design of your website. Circular images can also come in handy when designing invitations, business cards or attention-grabbing advertisements.
If you mainly use your iPhone for taking photos and editing them, you might have wondered at least once whether you can crop images into a circle on your smartphone. And the answer to this is yes. But you cannot do that with a built-in app. Unfortunately, the iPhone’s Photos app can crop images only into rectangles and squares.
It’s worth mentioning that you can crop a photo into a circle in the Mac’s Preview app. But it’s not exactly convenient since the Preview app doesn’t offer an extensive editing toolkit and you’ll need to transfer your photos from your smartphone to your computer.
So, what can you do?
Well, there are two solutions to this problem. First, you can go to the App Store and search for a third-party app for circle crop that will suit your needs and wants, then download and install it. Below, you will find a list of great mobile apps, which will surely make your choice easier.
Second, you can make use of a web-based app for cropping. It’s an app that works in a browser – and your iPhone surely has one – and can be used on any device or operating system. You will find a list of the best browser-based apps for cropping in this article, too. Both lists contain advantages and disadvantages that the apps have.
Let’s take a closer look at all the options you have to crop a picture into a circle right on your iPhone.
Crop Picture OnlineRating in the App Store – 4.8.
Number of reviews – 2400.
This is an uncomplicated and straightforward app for cropping a photo into a circle on iPhone. You will see the editing window as soon as you open the app. Here, you will find the following:
Each of these options can be adjusted to your liking. You can change the size of your round picture by typing in the necessary number of pixels, centimeters, millimeters, or inches. The border doesn’t have to be blue or thick – you can change its color as well as thickness. It’s also possible to get rid of the border completely, if you don’t like it. After you upload your photo into the app, you can make the image itself bigger or smaller, which will help you with positioning your main subject right in the center of the circle.
Since you want your photo to be round, you will need to crop it in PNG. This is due to the fact that some parts of your image will need to be transparent to create the illusion of a circle. If you crop in JPG, your round photo will have white borders around it. It might work if you want to post it on a website that has a white background – then those white borders will blend in with the background. But chances are, this isn’t really the result that you want.
Once the app is done, your cropped image will appear in the Recents album on your iPhone.
Main benefits of the Round Photo’s app:
Main drawbacks of the Round Photo’s app:
Rating in the App Store – 3.7.
Number of reviews – 159.
This app was designed solely for cropping a photo in a circle on iPhone. It should be pretty straightforward. However, even though there’s a tutorial that you can watch at the beginning, it will still take you some time to figure out how this app works. Oddly enough, here, you will need to double-tap to import your image into the app, go to the preview section and save the result.
To change the shape of the cropping area from a square to a circle, you will need to move the green slider at the bottom as far to the right as possible.
If you want to adjust the thickness of the border, click on the «+» icon in the bottom right corner to go to the General Settings. Here you can also set the distance from the edges, pick a different color for the border or the background; you can even have a patterned background!
The main drawback of this circle cropper is that you don’t see the changes you’re making immediately in the editing window. You can only see them, if you go to the Preview section. Moreover, in the free version, a watermark will be added to your cropped photo.
Another drawback is that the interface is not user-friendly – you need to press several buttons to perform a simple action. For example, there is no button to export the cropped image to your iPhone’s gallery. To do this, you’ll need to double-tap and choose “Share the cropped photo” from the menu that will open, and then select “Save Image”.
Main benefits of the Circular Photo Cropping Tool:
Main drawbacks of the Circular Photo Cropping Tool:
Photo Crop Editor is a great app to crop photos into a circle on iPhone. In fact, it offers an array of options for cropping. You can select the “Free form” option to crop your image however you want. It’s also possible to select one of the templates with popular aspect ratios or pick one of the different shapes, such as a circle, a heart, a triangle, etc.
Here’s how you can crop an image into a circle in Photo Crop Editor:
Quite quick and simple, isn’t it?
Main benefits of the Photo Crop Editor:
Main drawbacks of the Photo Crop Editor:
Most online tools to crop photos into a circle on iPhone can be just as efficient and user-friendly as the mobile apps. One of the best things about web-based apps is that they can be used on different devices and operating systems. It can be incredibly convenient, and this is why some developers opt for creating apps that work in a browser. It is often a priority for them to create an app that has great usability and produces results of high quality regardless of the device that people use it on.
Browser-based apps need the Internet connection; otherwise the website simply won’t load. But most mobile apps tend to require at least some connection to the internet anyway. Another difference is that your cropped images will be saved to Downloads, not to Photos. Other than that you won’t see much difference between using a mobile app or a browser-based app.
Using iphonecrop.com to crop an image into a circle is incredibly simple. You upload a picture, adjust the cropping area and save the result. Before downloading your cropped picture to your iPhone, you’ll be able to preview it right in the app. Everything works quickly and easily. What’s also great about this app is that the interface isn’t flooded with ads. You won’t need to register or subscribe to anything. This is an amazing option for those who only need to crop one photo into circle on an iPhone and want to do it within a few seconds.
What are the disadvantages of this app you may ask? Well, you can crop only one photo at a time. It won’t be a good fit for you if you need to process a batch of images in one go or if you want to experiment with different cropping shapes. It doesn’t have any other tools for basic image editing, either. Thus, you won’t be able to apply any filters or edit the image itself in any other way. You can use this app only to crop a picture into a circle on iPhone.
This is another free online tool for circle cropping on iPhone. It’s a good web-based app, but it does pose a certain challenge. To create the cropping area, you will need to drag the green borders with your finger. It sounds simple, but sometimes it might take you a try or two to do this. You can resize the image itself to position your subject in the center. Similarly to the previous app, it’s also possible to preview your cropped image before exporting it.
This app allows you to crop a picture into circle on iPhone without paying anything or signing up. It is worth mentioning, though, that the interface will contain some ads, which will make the editing process somewhat inconvenient. In addition to this, there’s no batch processing. You will only be able to crop a single photo into a circle. You won’t find any additional tools for some basic image editing, either.
Here’s another browser-based app that you should definitely give a try – Watermarkly. Unlike the previous two options, on this website, you can do more than just cropping photos, you can also compress images, resize photos, blur different parts of a picture, watermark photos, and much more. Fret not! This app may have an array of tools and features to offer, but it’s not confusingly complex and complicated like, say, Photoshop. All the online tools have an intuitive interface and are user-friendly, so even a complete beginner will be able to use any of them.
To crop a picture into circle on iPhone, go to Tools > Crop Photos. Then scroll down a bit and click on the “Crop Photo Online” red button. This will open the image cropper.
Next, import one or several images. Once your images are in the app, select the circle shape at the bottom. Adjust the size of your cropping area by dragging the green borders with your finger. If you need to tilt the image itself, click on the round arrow and adjust the slider. Go to the export settings by tapping the “Next Step” button. Specify the settings and export your image.
The app is completely free. You won’t see any ads. You won’t have to create an account. No watermarks will be added to your cropped images. If you also need to crop images to prepare them for posting on popular social media platforms like Instagram or Facebook, Watermarkly offers a set of ready-made templates – your cropped images will have the necessary aspect ratios and pixel dimensions. Isn’t that convenient?
Let’s see what else you can do for free in Watermarkly:
The main drawback of Watermarkly is that you can crop up to 10 images per day in the free version.
Crop Picture OnlineNow that you know how to do circle cropping on iPhone, let’s take a look at the main reasons why round images might be of use to you:
Quite a lot of social media platforms have round profile pictures. In fact, it seems to be kind of a trend right now. Have you ever wondered why that is? Well, you’re about to find out!
It’s worth mentioning that not all platforms offer a decent cropping tool. This is why you should crop a picture in a circle on iPhone before uploading it to your social media profile.
Now, let’s take a look at why a round image tends to be a better fit for a profile picture than a square one:
Please note that if your profile picture shows a landscape or something abstract, you won’t have to worry about any of the reasons listed above. In fact, if there’s no face in your profile picture, it will be better if it has a square shape – this way, it will show more details. And the more details people will see, the better.
Crop Picture OnlineNow you know how to crop a picture into circle on iPhone. It’s perfectly possible for you to do this easily, quickly and for free; even though there are no built-in options. Each app that was featured in this article has its own advantages and disadvantages, but at the end of the day, no matter which one you choose, you’ll surely get great results. It might be a good idea to try out a few or all of them and see which one suits your needs the best. Now, go ahead and crop your beautiful images into a circle!