Create a Circular Image
You don't have to browse the web for too long before you come upon a circular photo. Many social media sites, plugins or platforms use circular photos for profile pictures. It is important to note that technically there is no such thing as a circular image. A circular image is a regular rectangular image with transparent pixels outside the visible circular region. In this tutorial you will learn how to use transparency to create a circular photo using the elliptical marquee tool in the online image editor.
Open the online elliptical marquee tool page. If the you have the editor already opened select the elliptical marque tool from the toolbar. If the you have no image loaded upload a file using the file uploader form.
2 Draw the circular selection
Make sure to check the 'circle' radio button in the tool options bar to make the shape of the selection circular. Press and drag to draw the selection around the region you want. A marching ants marquee will indicate the region that is selected.
3 Invert the selection
We want to clear the area around and not inside the circular selection. Remember the the selection will affect the region inside it, so we have to invert the circular selection to clear whats outside. To do this choose Select > Invert from the menu.
4 Clear outside the circle
Now that we have the area outside the circle selected we can clear it to make it transparent. Choose Edit > Clear from the menu.
5 Close the selection
Use menu Select > Close Selection to remove the selection.
6 Trim the image
After clearing we have the circular region we want but it is sorrounded by transparency represented by the checkered background tile. To remove the extra transparency choose Image > Trim to resize the canvas to the visible content in the layer.
7 Save the Image
Choose File > Save Image then save the image as PNG to preserve the transparency.