Step-by-Step: Turn Photos into Personalized Stickers on iPhone

Ryan Barnett · December 6, 2024

 

Stickers are a fun, cool thing to put on your photos so that it's someone's photo. From social media to custom gifts to personal projects, turning photos into stickers is virtually endless. Technology advancements make it easier than ever to make these stickers, and tools such as insMind make the process even easier.

Not only can these tools help you to add stickers to photos, but they also provide you with enough customization options to enhance the photographs, from resizing to improving the quality of photos. iPhone’s latest iOS updates after iOS-17 have built-in capability to add stickers but third-party tools give us more extension and we can design more unique and high-quality stickers.

They aren’t just for social media either, you can use personalized stickers for branding, gifting, and event decoration. This guide shares the top methods to create personalized photo stickers using different tools. Today learn how to unleash your creativity and turn your photos into pretty stickers.

Part1: Why take photos and then make the photo stickers?

There are multiple reasons why you need to make photo stickers including the following:

Express Creativity

You can do all this with photos and transform them into stickers which really lets you unleash your creativity. You will be able to create colorful, quirky, or playful designs using vibrant colors, shapes, or elements, turning ordinary pictures into something unique.

This is the perfect process for people who love to dabble in the artistic side of their brain, and like turning their brain into something they’ve never seen before.

Personalize Communication

Using personalized stickers makes your communication more engaging. Unique stickers added to messages or social media posts can communicate emotions, humor, or themes in a way ordinary emojis cannot. Stickers are really a nice thing as they help to add a personal touch to friends, family, and followers.

Save Memories Creatively

Preserving cherished memories can be a creative thing in itself in the form of stickers. Making a visual diary is fun, and you can do it by turning photos of loved ones, pets, or special occasions into stickers. These stickers can be used in scrapbooks or digital albums to make your memories extra special.

Create Unique Gifts

Making gifts is an excellent opportunity and customized stickers offer chances to make them memorable. They let you convert special photos to stickers for use in decorating objects such as notebooks, phone cases, or packaging.

These personalized designs are good because they're thoughtful and show effort, so they make birthday gifts, holidays, and special event gifts.

Part2: Add Stickers to Photos on iPhone using Built-in iPhone features

 Here are the methods of adding stickers to your photos using the built-in features on your iPhone.

1. Use Camera in Messages

Being able to add stickers in the iPhone Messages app is a great and simple way to add a little pizazz to a conversation that might otherwise be quite anonymous. Here’s how:

Step 1: Open Messages

Turn on Messages, and open an existing chat or a new one.

Step 2: Access the Camera

To snap a photo, tap the camera icon; To pick a photo from your library, tap the photo icon.

Step 3: Add Stickers

If your iPhone supports it, tap the sticker icon, and browse sticker options.

Step 4: Customize the Sticker

You can reposition or resize the sticker to fit your photo.

Step 5: Save the Photo

Tap on the photo and long press, then tap ‘Save’ to save a copy with stickers to your Photos app.

Benefits:

Messages are always online and you don't need to install additional tools. This is a quick method if you can afford to do one-shot edits.

2. iOS 17 and above Photos App.

We go into detail about the Photos App in the 'Feature Masks' section. New to iOS 17, adding stickers to photos is now a breeze via the Photos app. Here’s how to use it:

Step 1: Open Photos App

You should be on the photo you want to edit.

Step 2: Tap Edit

You can click the “Edit” button and edit the content using tools.

Step 3: Add Stickers

Browse through all your saved stickers or emoji decisions.

Step 4: Adjust Stickers

You can drag, resize, or rotate stickers to fit your design needs.

Step 5: Save Changes

To save the stickered photo click ‘Done’.

Benefits:

Built-in tools found in the Photos app don't require separate downloads and ensure that the settings used in the phone's photo tool are also available to the Photos app.

Part3: How to use Third Party Tools to Add Stickers

With Third-party tools like insMind, iPhone users can get a better experience of adding stickers to their Photos without needing to install anything.

1. insMind Stickers with Photos

An insMind sticker maker is an AI-powered tool for making your stickers and putting them on photos. Here's how to use it:

Step 1: Open insMind Sticker Maker

Go to the insMind website and go to the sticker generator feature.

Step 2: Upload Your Photo

You can then select the image you would like to transform. Tap on the "Upload a Photo” button to upload it.

Step 3: Choose Stickers

Visit insMind’s sticker library to use their stickers or create your own.

Step 4: Adjust and Customize

Manipulate transparency, colors, or effect of the sticker and resize and reposition the sticker.

Step 5: Save and Download

After that, download the final image in the best possible resolution.

Benefits:

The versatility of insMind lies in its library and customization option – it allows users to create professionally graded stickers with ease.

2. Add Stickers with WhatsApp

When the pictures we take are shared, what you will be sharing is a WhatsApp image which has already been enhanced with an image editing feature built into the app, that is, the possibility of stickers. Here’s how to do it:

Step 1: Open WhatsApp

Open any chat in the app and launch the app.

Step 2: Select or Capture a Photo

If you want to capture a new photo, tap the camera icon, if not, select a photo from your gallery.

Step 3: Add Stickers

Under that press the emoji icon, and you select Stickers. You can choose from saved sticker packs or add new ones.

Step 4: Customize Placement

Firstly, drag, resize, and position each sticker as necessary.

Step 5: Save Your Work

Once you are done, tap the share icon and save the photo, as edited.

Benefits:

This allows WhatsApp customers to swiftly create these unique pictures and then share them, thus this is a useful method for individuals in WhatsApp who need to be able to create and share unique pictures successfully.

Part4: Personalized Stickers Use Cases

On the other hand, personalized stickers have a wide range of applications. Here are some popular use cases:

1. Enhancing Social Media Posts

Giving your social media posts a bit of uniqueness with unique stickers to your photos can help make them more interesting. Though taking risks can cost you hassle or money, eye-catching designs on Instagram and Snapchat boost the likes, shares, and followers.

Personalized Gift Images

A great way to make gifts more personal and creative is to make stickers of family photos or special moments to decorate gifts.

Event Decorations

You can use customized stickers as fun decorations for birthdays, weddings, or any other celebration! They can be used on banners, party favors, photo booths, or any other thing that has to do with the party's theme.

Business Branding

Personalized stickers can help small businesses to strengthen their brand identification. You can put a logo or a slogan on product packing or marketing material as a sticker.

Part5: Tips for creating professional-looking Stickers

Here are some of our expert tips that can help you with creating professional stickers. By using these tips efficiently, you can make stickers that look like they were created by some expert graphic designer all thanks to insMind’s AI capabilities.

Use High-Quality Images

Take a sharp and well-lit image, as your stickers need to look not only professionally manufactured but also with a professional finish. Stickers look more appealing with blur-free photos.

Optimize Backgrounds

For those using insMind’s ai background changer, this AI can help remove unwanted distractions or replace them with something more cohesive. This turns out to make stickers look more professional.

Add Shadows for Depth

Integrate very subtle shadows to emulate a realistic look. insMind's ai shadow tool will allow you to give stickers depth, and make them look good on any surface.

Try Different Sizes and Shapes

Don’t restrict yourself to square and rectangular designs. Play with circular or custom shapes that fit better to the image and application you are using.

Save in the Right Format

Since stickers cover a surface, and those surfaces can have transparent backgrounds, PNG is the best format for stickers.

Conclusion

Simple yet versatile, turning photos into stickers is a good way to give your images a boost. Everyone can have custom stickers thanks to insMind and built-in iPhone features. Personalized stickers are something you can use to add flair to social media posts, create artistic memories, or give them as unique gifts.

It's clear what the benefits are, unleashing creativity, and helping to make communication more personal. The process itself is becoming more intuitive, thanks to the evolving technology, which puts the power of transforming a photo into a sticker into users' hands.

If you’re ready to use your photo editing powerfully, try out insMind’s AI sticker generator or explore other options available with the iPhone's built-in tools. Find out what it’s like to design, share, and utilize stickers to make your images pop.

Add stickers now

Ryan Barnett

I'm a freelance writer with a passion for editing and designing photos. Here at insMind, I strive to educate users on image creativity, photography, and enhancing product photos to help grow their businesses