Cropping is one of the basic needs when editing photos. It helps to remove unnecessary parts from it. While we usually crop to a square or rectangle, sometimes, we want our image to have a different shape, such as a circle. One might think that would be an easy job for Paint, but things are different.
Seven years ago, we covered how to give an image a perfect circle using Paint. Surprisingly, things have not changed much. Although Microsoft has launched an upgraded version of Paint called Paint 3D, it also does not allow us to crop circular images with a single click.
Fortunately, a workaround exists. The steps can look intimidating and lengthy, but once you get the hang of the process, it doesn’t take long. So let’s start the process of cropping the image into a circle in Paint 3D.
Cut a circle in Paint 3D
Here’s how to go about it.
1. Open image
Launch Paint 3D and open the image you want to crop by going to Menu > Open.
2. Draw a circle using a 2D . shape
Now, we need the help of circle to draw a circle on our image. For that, go to the 2D shapes at the top and select the circle from the right sidebar.
Then bring the mouse pointer closer to the area that you want to crop. Hold left mouse button, drag to draw a circle. For a matching and equal circle, hold down the Shift key while dragging the mouse.
3. Adjust the circle parameter
After drawing the circle, don’t click outside of it before adjusting some necessary parameters. First make sure that Fill is selected as None and Line Type as Solid in the right sidebar. Also, keep white as Line type color.
Now increase the thickness of the circle from the right sidebar. For best results, keep the size 100px.
Don’t worry, if you don’t understand the circle or priority area inside the circle correctly the first time. You can adjust it easily by moving the circle or resizing it. To move the circle, hover the mouse pointer inside the circle. You should see it change to a four-sided arrow. Press and hold the left mouse button and drag it to another location.
To adjust the size, drag the shape using any of the small squares in the dotted line. Hold Shift for best results.
Finally, click on the tick icon outside the circle border to add a circle.
4. Crop the photo to a square
Now click Crop present on the toolbar and cut it in square shape. Adjust the crop selection so that the selection touches the inside edges of the circle, as shown in the screenshot. Tap Done on the right sidebar to crop it.
5. Remove the outer area
If you have followed the steps correctly so far, you should have an existing background on the four sides of the circle. To remove it, click on the Brushes icon and select eraser from it.
Erase the excess by holding the left mouse button and dragging it over the outer areas. You can also increase the size of the eraser using the Thickness slider in the right sidebar.
At the end you will have your image inside a circle. If you are using it on a white background, you can save the image and use it. If the background color is different, check the next section to make the background transparent.
6. Make the background transparent
To make the background transparent, we will use Paint 3D’s Magic select tool.
Here are the steps:
Step 1: Click the Magic select icon at the top. Since the background is white and distinct, there is no need to make any other changes or adjust the border. Click Next on the right.
Hopefully you’ll find that Paint detected the correct circle shape. If something is missing, refine it using the Add or Remove buttons. Press the Done button to make sure the Autofill background is selected.
Step 2: You will notice that the size of the cropped image increases slightly. Do not worry. Select the Canvas icon at the top and enable Transparent Canvas. Most of the white background will disappear.
Step 3: If there are some areas with white background, we can remove them. To do that, slightly increase the size of the box while holding down the Shift key.
Step 4: Next, click on the cropped image. A new selection box will appear. Now increase its size by dragging it from any corner. Hold down the Shift key to make equal adjustments. Doing that will hide the white spots.
Tip: 
Step 5: Finally, go to the Menu and select Save as from there with the file format as Image.
Step 6: In the Save as type drop-down box, select PNG (image) and check the box next to Transparency. Press the Save button to save your cropped image.
Saving the image in PNG format is extremely important because PNG retains the transparency of the image. If you face any problem while removing the background of your photo, check out the post where we cover it in detail.
Now you can easily use this circle anywhere you want. Furthermore, you can use the above steps to crop the image into any shape. Just select the 2D shape of your choice and follow the same steps.
Tip: Add a circle to an image in Paint 3D
If you want to add this newly created circle image on top of another image in Paint 3D itself, you can save it as a sticker. So when you complete step 1 of the background removal process (i.e. using the Magic select tool), click on the image. Tap Create sticker from the sidebar.
Now open the image in Paint 3D to which you want to add this circular image. Go to Stickers at the top and click the third icon on the right sidebar. You will find your cropped image here. Click on it to add to the base image. Adjust its position and size, and finally, save the image.
Circles should be easy
I know that this method is too long for a simple crop. But that’s what’s available to us right now. Hope is a good thing, and that’s all we can do — hope that Microsoft introduces natural circle cropping. Meanwhile, you can download PhotoScape, free editing software that offers circular cropping.
Next: Microsoft is killing the Snipping Tool on Windows. Snip & Sketch will replace it. Know how these two apps differ.
Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
