How to Crop a Picture in a Circle with Paint 3D

Crop a Circle in Paint 3D

Got something round to crop in a picture? Not satisfied with rectangular crops? Find out here how to crop a picture into a circle in Paint 3D (as well as into other non-rectangular shapes).

First, Wheat Considerably Knocked About

If you opened your copy of the journal Nature published on July 29, 1880, you got to read about a curious discovery made on a farm in Surrey, a county filled with picturesque hills south of London.

The wheat in a field had been “knocked about” not at random but showing a distinct pattern: “a few standing stalks as a centre, some prostrate stalks with their heads arranged pretty evenly in a direction forming a circle.”

So, let’s talk about cropping circles:

How to Crop a Picture in a Circle with Paint 3D

Time needed: 7 minutes

To imitate cropping an image in the shape of a circle with Paint 3D:

  1. Select 2D Shapes in the Paint 3D toolbar.

  2. Now select Circle under 2D shapes in the Paint 3D sidebar.

    Other shapes: You can “crop” with any of the other shapes as well, of course.

  3. Click in the image, then keep the left mouse button pressed and hold down the Shift key while drawing a circle with the mouse pointer.

  4. Release the mouse button.

  5. Select None under Fill in the Circle sidebar.

  6. Now choose Solid under Line type and, typically, make the circle white under Choose a color.

    Note: Select the desired background color for your image.

  7. Increase the circle outline’s width under Thickness.

  8. Adjust the circle’s size using the outline’s handles so just the part of the image you want to crop is visible inside it.

    Adjust the circle's size

  9. Click the Commit checkmark.

  10. Crop the image in a square so that the new edges are wholly outside the image inside the circle.

    Crop the Image in a Square

  11. Select Brushes in the toolbar.

  12. Choose Eraser.

  13. Increase the eraser’s thickness.

  14. Delete the image remaining in the crop’s edges.

    Apply magic: As an alternative, you can also select the image remains in the edges using paint 3D magic selection.Delete the image remaining in the crop's edges

  15. Optionally, crop the picture anew in square shape to remove as much of the white background as possible.

How to Crop a Picture in a Circle with Paint 3D: FAQ

Can I make the background transparent?

While transparent backgrounds in Paint 3D are not well suited to circular crops, you can make the background transparent with a quick trip to the web.

After “cropping” with the white background in Paint 3D, you can go ahead and make the background transparent:

  1. Save the image using the PNG format in Paint 3D.
  2. Make the background color transparent in a tool like Lunapic.

Different strokes: For this to work most easily, choose a background color that does not otherwise occur in the picture.

Can I crop a circle in MS Paint?

Yes, you can, in very similar a manner, also crop an image to a circle in Paint for Windows.

(How to crop a picture into a circle tested with Paint 3D 6.2004; updated October 2023)

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