Once you have your profile picture framed in the circle the way you want it, you might want to crop the entire image so that it’s square. Free transform lets you drag the corners of the layer to resize it (hold down the Shift key to resize the layer with a constrained 1:1 proportion). You may need to resize your profile picture, and you can do that by choosing “Free transform” from the Edit menu while you have that layer selected. You can do a lot with masks like this to cut out or reveal parts of a layer. You’ll also notice that everything on that layer except the area of the circle you drew has disappeared.

You’ll notice that your Layers toolbar now has a green circle on your profile picture layer. Choose “Add layer mask” from the Layer menu. The area you drew and that is selected is ready to be turned into a layer mask. You’ll see it outlined as a selection with dotted lines. Simply choose a starting point in the upper-left hand of your image and draw the circle. Note that if you select the constraint for “Aspect ratio” and set that to 1:1 the circle you draw will be completely round. Choose the Marquee tool and select the circular option in additional tools. You’re going to draw a circle on your profile image layer. Leave it transparent if you prefer a transparent background. Paint the background of the new background layer white if you want a white background. With the image you want to “circularize” open in Pixlr Editor, unlock the background layer and create a second layer - a new background layer that you will place underneath the layer containing your image. I like to start by getting my layers all set up so I can work in an organized way. If you’ve never used layer masks before, this is an excellent introduction. Using a simple layer mask to surround your photo with a circular “border,” you can quickly and easily create the effect of a round image.

If you love circular avatars but your favorite social site doesn’t offer them, you can create one with Pixlr Editor. With HTML5, web app developers have a lot more flexibility with how they treat images, and making circular avatars seems to be a “because they now can” option. The main reason behind it seems to be HTML5. The winds of Internet design have been changing when it comes to avatars: They are increasingly becoming circular.Ī number of major social networks have adopted rounded profile pictures, which has spurred this trend on further.

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