Ellipse Select Tool

How to use the Ellipse Select Tool

1. 1Select an image or drop one on the page.
2. 2Drag from one corner of the box to the opposite corner. Hold Shift for a perfect circle.
3. 3Choose Keep the selection or Remove the selection.
4. 4Set the soft edge and tick Crop the result to the selection if you want a tight picture.
5. 5Press Cut out the selection and Download PNG.

Ovals in design

Oval and circular crops give pictures a friendly, finished look: avatars, speaker photos, team pages, badges and decorative frames. Because the corners become transparent, the picture sits on any background colour. Soft edges fade the border into the page for a vignette effect.

Placing the oval

Drag diagonally across the part you want, and watch the dashed outline. The oval touches the middle of each side of the box you drag. For a head-and-shoulders portrait, drag so that the face sits slightly above the centre. Hold Shift for a circle. If the first try is off, press Clear selection and drag again.

• Portrait: face in the upper middle
• Logo badge: Shift for a perfect circle
• Vignette: keep, soft edge of 20 px or more

Keep or remove

Keep makes an oval picture with a transparent surround. Remove cuts an oval hole, which is handy for putting someone's face behind a frame. Crop to the selection trims the transparent rectangle to the oval's bounding box.

A quick example

To make a team photo avatar, select the picture, hold Shift and drag a circle around the face. Choose Keep, a soft edge of 2 pixels and Crop, then cut out and download the PNG. You get a round avatar with transparent corners.

Soft edges and vignettes

A soft edge fades the border of the oval over a few pixels, which hides the jagged look that a hard cut can have on photographs. A larger value turns the oval into a vignette: the centre stays sharp and the surround fades out smoothly. Try 2 or 3 pixels for avatars and 20 or more for artistic frames, and compare by pressing Back to the selection and cutting again with another value.

Phone and computer

On a phone, drag with one finger; there is no Shift key, so make the box square by eye or use the circle crop tool for a perfect circle. On a computer, hold Shift. Pictures up to about 16 million pixels work.

Good to know

The oval is measured on the full-size picture. A very small selection may select only a few pixels, and the tool reports the pixel count so you can check. The output is a PNG; save it as such to keep the transparency. When a round box is too tidy for your shape, the Lasso Tool draws a free-hand outline, and the Magic Wand Tool picks an area by its colour.

Features

• Ovals and perfect circles
• Dashed outline while you drag
• Keep or remove the selection
• Soft edge and crop
• Transparent PNG output
• Private: runs in your browser

Frequently asked questions