Oval Cropped Photos

[Arlen McElwee]

In most programs when you crop with a oval it cut out these rest of picture for you. In elements how do you make oval photos with no background or no square with box behind it?

[Nancy S]

Arlen,

All images are actually a rectangle (square) but if they appear to be some other shape that is because every area except that shape is transparent. Only some formats respect transparency. The native format of Photoshop Elements (.psd) will support transparency and so will Tiff and Gif. I believe there is one other also, perhaps .png. Jpg does not.

To make an oval shaped image, one way to do it is;
* make sure you drag the Layers Palette out of the well (grab the tab and pull it down to the work area)
* on the one layer showing in the Layers Palette, double click your background layer to unlock it and have it become a regular layer
* duplicate your background layer
* you now have two layers in palette
* click on the eye on the bottom layer to temporarily make it invisible
* click on the top layer to make it active
* get the elliptical marquee from the Tools Palette (it might be hidden behind the rectangular marquee, if so, rest your cursor over the rect. mar. and choose the ellipse from the fly out)
* start dragging the tool from the top left diagonally where you want your selection to be
* to move it around a little after drawing it, keep cursor inside lines and drag
* if you need to redraw, press Control and the D on the keyboard (Ctrl/D) to remove selection lines and begin again
* when satisfied, go to Select>Inverse>Delete
* everything outside of your lines will be erased to transparency
* if you wish to feather the selection, after you draw it choose Select>Feather and type in the amount
* you now have an oval shaped image
* go to Save>Save As, choose the .psd format and name it

NOTE: you could do this also by; after creating the oval shape, (no need to delete the area around the ellipse) go to Edit>Copy and then create a new blank document and with it active, go Edit>Paste.

Come back is you have another question.

[Nancy S]

Arlen,

Of course it is best practice to always work on a copy, never an original.

[E. Segen]

EPS also supports transparency with the use of clipping paths but that probably isn't a relevant format for your needs at this point.

[Arlen McElwee]

Thanks for the info

[Lorace Graham]

I can't help wondering if you all realize just how much help your answers are to those of us who are striving to learn this program!

This was exactly the question I have been struggling with for about four days and was going to get brave enough to ask it tonight! So I'm glad Arlen asked it.

I appreciate the replies to all these questions so much. They are better, I think, than many of the manuals, because they answer explicit questions in explicit ways.

Thank you so much. I'm going to make my first OVAL picture tonight, I'm sure. lol

Appreciatively,

Lorace

[Nancy S]

Lorace,

It was so nice of you to post the kind words about the folks on this forum, I'm sure the positive feedback is welcomed.

But what's this about being "brave enough" to ask a question??? This forum is for asking questions and sharing information. Just jump in when you have a question. There are no dumb questions and I have never ever seen a shark in these waters.

Nancy

[Jodi Frye]

[Chuck Snyder]

Jodi, those of us using newsreader access aren't getting to enjoy your
'aquarium'....!

:-(

Chuck

[Jodi Frye]

Sorry Chuck, I don't see why you all use news reader anyways ;). What's so terrible about the web forum ?

Was wondering... This news reader business...is that where we are getting all these annoying 'auto quote ' functions on the forum ?

[Beth Haney]

I think so, Jodi. I've been trying to figure out how to sabotage them but so far haven't come up with any ideas that are legal. I understand using a few key words every once in a while, but the headers, too???

[Chuck Snyder]

Jodi and Beth - You're right - the autoquote comes from the way the
newsreader frames its reply ; the body of the message to which you're
replying plus the sender's address (as carried behind the scenes in the
forum) pops up when you begin to reply. You have to remember to erase it
before going on. It's sometimes useful to include snippets of the original
message for reference, especially in a long, winding chain like we
occasionally get here, but the address should always be zapped.

Why use the newsgroup vs. the forum? It's easier for me; it shows up as its
own box in Outlook Express, which is where my e-mail resides. I can filter
to show only unread messages, and, very important to me, I can drag and drop
copies of really good replies into my Photoshop Tips box (You two have some
of your excellent suggestions in residence there...!)

:-)

Chuck

[Unregistered]

horrible instructions! select inverse delete? inverse is not an option...

Arlen,

All images are actually a rectangle (square) but if they appear to be some other shape that is because every area except that shape is transparent. Only some formats respect transparency. The native format of Photoshop Elements (.psd) will support transparency and so will Tiff and Gif. I believe there is one other also, perhaps .png. Jpg does not.

To make an oval shaped image, one way to do it is;
* make sure you drag the Layers Palette out of the well (grab the tab and pull it down to the work area)
* on the one layer showing in the Layers Palette, double click your background layer to unlock it and have it become a regular layer
* duplicate your background layer
* you now have two layers in palette
* click on the eye on the bottom layer to temporarily make it invisible
* click on the top layer to make it active
* get the elliptical marquee from the Tools Palette (it might be hidden behind the rectangular marquee, if so, rest your cursor over the rect. mar. and choose the ellipse from the fly out)
* start dragging the tool from the top left diagonally where you want your selection to be
* to move it around a little after drawing it, keep cursor inside lines and drag
* if you need to redraw, press Control and the D on the keyboard (Ctrl/D) to remove selection lines and begin again
* when satisfied, go to Select>Inverse>Delete
* everything outside of your lines will be erased to transparency
* if you wish to feather the selection, after you draw it choose Select>Feather and type in the amount
* you now have an oval shaped image
* go to Save>Save As, choose the .psd format and name it

NOTE: you could do this also by; after creating the oval shape, (no need to delete the area around the ellipse) go to Edit>Copy and then create a new blank document and with it active, go Edit>Paste.

Come back is you have another question.

[sunnygupta]

Hi,

I am able to create Oval Shape Images from Sq. Images. But after making it Oval shape, not able to delete the outside of the Oval lines. I tried selection Invese and then delete, outside the oval either it is white or transparent. Also I tried edit copy and paste the same on a new worksheet. Since new worksheet comes again Sq. only, outside the oval remain white.
Please help and any help will appreciable.

Regards
Sunny