Tired of cropping your photos into rectangles and squares? In this tutorial, learn how to easily crop images as circles with Photoshop! And, learn how to properly save the final result to keep the transparency so you can add the photo to a design or upload it to the web! Written by Steve Patterson. Usually when we think of cropping images in Photoshop, we think of cropping them as a rectangle or a square. And if we're using Photoshop's Crop Tool, we don't really have any other options. But who says we need to use the Crop Tool?
Photoshop makes it just as easy to crop a photo using a selection tool. To crop an image to a circle, we'll use the Elliptical Marquee Tool. I'll be using here but any recent version of Photoshop will work. Here's what the image cropped as a circle will look like, complete with transparency in the corners so you can easily upload it to the web or place it in another design.
The Layers panel showing the image on the Background layer. Before we can crop our image to a circle, we first need to convert the Background layer into a normal layer. The reason is that we'll need to be able to surround our image with transparency, but Photoshop doesn't allow transparency on the.
To convert the Background layer into a normal layer, all we need to do is rename it. In Photoshop CC, simply click on the lock icon on the right of the Background layer in the Layers panel. In Photoshop CS6 or earlier, press and hold the Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key on your keyboard and double-click on the Background layer.
Photoshop instantly renames the layer from 'Background' to 'Layer 0'. And just like that, we've converted it into a normal layer and we're good to go. Selecting the Elliptical Marquee Tool. Step 4: Draw A Circular Selection Outline With the Elliptical Marquee Tool in hand, click inside your image and drag out an elliptical selection outline. To force the selection outline into a perfect circle, press and hold the Shift key on your keyboard as you're dragging. Don't worry about getting the location of the circle exactly right because we'll move it into position in the next step.
For now, just make sure the circle is big enough to surround the area you want to keep. When you're done, release your mouse button, then release your Shift key.
Make sure you release your mouse button first, then the Shift key, or the selection outline will snap back into a freeform elliptical shape.
Using the Pen Tool to Cut an Object from Its Background in Photoshop. April 25, 2012 By Printwand Staff 6 Comments. (Command + or – on the Mac). Do you want to create a background from scratch, or do you want to cut out an image and place it on an existing background? In this weeks tutorial we discuss 3 of the absolute, best ways, to cut out your images in Photoshop. We discuss the infamous quick selection tool, the channels method, and finally, the ever so.
You can use the Move tool to copy selections as you drag them within or between images, or you can copy and move selections using the Copy, Copy Merged, Cut, and Paste commands. Dragging with the Move tool saves memory because you don't use the clipboard. When you paste a selection or layer between images with different resolutions, the pasted data retains its pixel dimensions. This can make the pasted portion appear out of proportion to the new image. Use the Image Size command to make the source and destination images the same resolution before copying and pasting, or use the Free Transform command to resize the pasted content. Hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS), and drag the selection.
To copy the selection and offset the duplicate by 1 pixel, hold down Alt or Option, and press an arrow key. To copy the selection and offset the duplicate by 10 pixels, press Alt+Shift (Windows) or Option+Shift (Mac OS), and press an arrow key. As long as you hold down Alt or Option, each press of an arrow key creates a copy of the selection and offsets it by the specified distance from the last duplicate. In this case, the copy is made on the same layer. Drag one or more Illustrator vector objects into an open image in Photoshop. This creates a vector Smart Object layer in the image. Choose Layer Smart Objects Edit Content to reopen the content in Illustrator for editing.
To copy the vector object as a path in Photoshop, hold down Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS) as you drag from Illustrator. To copy the contents of the currently selected layer in Photoshop to Illustrator, use the Move tool to drag the content from the Photoshop window into an open Illustrator document.