How to Make a Circle Webcam in OBS Studio

Transforming your standard rectangular webcam into a sleek, circular shape is a great way to elevate the production value of your live streams or video recordings. This article provides a direct, step-by-step tutorial on how to use the “Image Mask/Blend” filter in OBS Studio to crop your camera feed into a perfect circle using a simple black-and-white mask image.

Step 1: Create or Download a Circle Mask

To shape your webcam, OBS Studio requires a template image called a “mask” to determine which parts of the video to show and which to hide.

  1. Open any image editor (such as Photoshop, GIMP, Canva, or MS Paint).
  2. Create a square canvas (for example, 1000 x 1000 pixels).
  3. Fill the background with solid black.
  4. Draw a perfect white circle that fills the center of the canvas.
  5. Save the image to your computer as a PNG or JPEG.

(Note: In OBS, the filter will display whatever is on the white portion of the image and hide whatever is on the black portion).

Step 2: Crop Your Webcam Feed into a Square

Because most webcams output in a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio, applying a circle mask directly will stretch the circle into an oval. You need to crop your webcam feed into a 1:1 square first.

  1. Open OBS Studio and locate your webcam in the Sources dock.
  2. Select the webcam source in your preview window.
  3. Hold down the Alt key (Option key on Mac).
  4. Click and drag the left and right bounding box edges inward until your webcam feed is a perfect square.

Step 3: Apply the Image Mask/Blend Filter

Once your camera feed is square, you can apply the circle mask.

  1. Right-click your webcam source in the Sources dock and select Filters.
  2. In the Filters window, click the + (plus) icon in the bottom-left corner of the Effect Filters section (the bottom section).
  3. Select Image Mask/Blend from the list and click OK.

Step 4: Configure the Filter Settings

Adjust the settings of the filter to map the circle template to your video feed.

  1. Set the Type dropdown menu to Alpha Mask (Color Channel).
  2. Click the Browse button next to the Path field.
  3. Select the circle mask image you saved in Step 1.
  4. Leave the opacity at 100% and the color unchanged.
  5. Click Close.

Your webcam feed will now be masked into a perfect circle. You can now drag, resize, and position your circular webcam anywhere on your OBS screen without losing its shape.