Not every image in your slideshow has to be a plain rectangle or square. You might want to spruce up the presentation by giving your picture some shape. You can easily crop an image into a shape in Google Slides.

You may even have the reverse situation. Maybe you have shapes in your slideshow that you want to give some pizzazz. You can use images as the fill for shapes like circles, arrows, hearts, and stars.

It all starts with cropping an image to fit into the shape you want.

Crop an Image Into a Shape

The first step is to insert your image into your Google Slides presentation if you haven’t done so already. Choose the slide you want to work with, go to the Insert menu, and move to Image. Select a location to upload the image and pop it onto your slide.

If your image is larger than the slide, you can resize it first if you like by dragging a corner or edge. But since you’ll be cropping it into a shape, this may not be necessary depending on its dimensions.

Make sure your image is selected and select the arrow next to the Crop button in the toolbar. You’ll see four categories: Shapes, Arrows, Callouts, and Equation.

Move your cursor to the category you want and select a shape from the pop-out menu.

And just like that, you’ve cropped your image to fit that shape!

Format the Image Shape

Just like any other photo or picture you add to your slideshow, you can format the image shape. Select it and click “Format Options” in the toolbar or Format > Format Options from the menu.

This opens a sidebar with tools for size and rotation, position, drop shadow, and more.

You can also still resize the image by dragging a corner or edge.

For additional help, take a look at our tutorial for editing images in Google Slides. And for more ways to work with pictures in your presentation, check out how to wrap text around images or how to make an image transparent in Google Slides.