How to make a sticker from a picture

Method 1: cut the subject out by hand

1. Start with a sharp photo. Good light, one subject and a clear edge between subject and background. Blurry photos make blurry stickers.
2. Remove the background. On iPhone, press and hold the subject in Photos and tap Copy. Otherwise use any background remover and export a PNG with transparency.
3. Save it as a transparent PNG. A sticker needs transparency. JPG files keep a white box around the subject, so always export PNG.
4. Add it to your chat app. Import the PNG into a sticker-pack app for WhatsApp or Telegram, or drop it into iMessage and Discord directly.

This is free and fast, and it is the right choice when you only need one sticker. The downside: every extra sticker means repeating the whole process, and the results rarely look like a matching set.

Method 2: a background remover in the browser

Any online background remover will export a transparent PNG. Add a thick white outline in an image editor if you want the classic die-cut sticker look, then keep the image square so chat apps do not crop it.

Method 3: generate a whole pack with AI

Instead of cutting out one picture, the AI reads your photo, builds a character from it and draws 16 different expressions and poses in the art style you choose — cartoon, 3D, anime, pixel, photo cutout and more. Captions are written natively in your language, so the jokes actually land.

• 16 transparent PNGs plus a ZIP and a sticker sheet
• Consistent face across the whole pack
• $9.95 once, no subscription

Common mistakes

• Exporting JPG instead of PNG, which leaves a white box around the subject
• Using a group photo, so the tool cannot tell who the sticker is of
• Starting from a dark or blurry picture — the sticker inherits every flaw
• Non-square images, which chat apps crop unpredictably

Try it with your own photo

Upload a photo and see the whole pack, or browse real examples first.