Profile pictures look simple until the app crops them into a circle. A photo that looks fine in your gallery can become awkward when the forehead, chin or logo edge is cut off. The problem is usually not the photo itself. It is that the source image was never prepared for a square frame.
Most social apps ask for a square upload and then display it as a circle in feeds, comments or message lists. Anything near the corners may disappear. If you upload a wide photo, the app chooses the crop for you. If you prepare a square image first, you decide what stays visible.
Build a square before uploading
Start by cropping or padding the image into a square. For a face photo, keep the eyes slightly above center and leave space around the head. For a logo, add margin on all sides so the circular mask does not cut into letters or symbols. Do not rely on the app's preview alone; previews can differ between mobile and desktop.
A 1000 x 1000 or 1200 x 1200 export is usually more than enough for modern avatars. Uploading a 4000-pixel camera photo only gives the platform more work to resize and compress. Large originals can also reveal skin texture or background clutter that will not matter at avatar size.
Export based on the content
Use JPG for regular portraits and photos. Use PNG for logos, illustrations and avatars with transparency. If the image contains text, check it at small size before uploading; thin text often becomes unreadable in a circular avatar.
Keep one high-quality square master and export smaller copies from it when needed. Re-cropping from a compressed social download is the worst source because the app has already resized and recompressed it once.