Make a sticker from a photo

From photo to sticker

The editor cuts the subject out with Person, the 25.9 MB default, or Any subject, an 88.1 MB opt-in for pets, food and objects. It then adds a white outline around the shape, an optional soft drop shadow, and trims the result to the subject. The final file is 512×512 px with transparent padding around it, a common size for chat stickers.

If you have already made a cutout of this version in another background tool, it is reused, so there is no second run.

Trimming means the subject fills as much of the 512 px square as its shape allows, with transparent padding making up the rest. Tall or wide subjects leave more empty space on two sides.

Outline and shadow

These two settings do most of the work in making a cut-out look like a sticker.

• Outline sets the width of the white border, from 0 to 40 px. Around 10 to 20 px gives the familiar die-cut sticker look. Wider borders read well on dark chat backgrounds. Set it to 0 for a plain cut-out.
• The soft drop shadow lifts the sticker off the background a little. It helps on light chat themes where a white outline alone can disappear.

Choosing photos that make good stickers

Strong, simple shapes work best. A face with a clear expression, a pet in a distinctive pose, a single object with a recognizable outline. Remember the sticker will be seen small, so crop out clutter and choose photos where the subject fills most of the frame.

The outline follows the mask, so the mask edge shows. Turn on Mask view to see the kept area in red. Fix loose bits with the Erase brush and missed parts with Restore. Shrink/grow edge, up to 6 px either way, tightens or loosens the whole outline. A clean, slightly smoothed edge looks better under a white border than a perfect but jagged one, so a touch of Edge softness helps.

Try a few outline widths, each kept as a version in History, and compare them before you export. Stickers made with the same outline width look like a set.

File format

WebP is the default and keeps the file small. Choose PNG if an app does not take WebP, or for printing on sticker paper. Both keep the transparent padding. If your browser cannot encode WebP, PNG is offered.

What it will not do

• Fine hair, glass, smoke and semi-transparent objects can come out imperfect; the brushes are there for that.
• The export is always 512×512 px, which is small for large prints.
• WebP export depends on your browser being able to encode it; PNG always works.
• The mask is computed on a copy of at most 4096 px on the long side and scaled up.

Devices and downloads

The Person model is a 25.9 MB first-time download, and Any subject is 88.1 MB if you choose it; both are Apache-2.0 licensed and cached afterwards. The editor shows each size before fetching. They run in a background worker, on WebGPU when your browser offers it and on WebAssembly otherwise. On WebAssembly, Any subject takes about 17 seconds per photo, and a second or two with WebGPU. The outline and shadow are ordinary drawing.

On-device AI: A small neural network that runs on this device after a one-time download. See what is stored on this device.

Step by step

1. Open a photo. Choose a picture with one clear subject.
2. Cut out the subject. Person for people, Any subject for pets and objects.
3. Style the sticker. Set the outline width and turn the drop shadow on or off.
4. Save it. Export the 512×512 sticker as WebP or PNG.

Questions about sticker maker