creating a round photo

quote:

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Originally posted by: gandalf458
Thanks guys. I got as far as drawing the circle but didn't get the rest.

Cheers G :)

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Hi G,

Peter's answer is correct, but I'll make it more verbose. There are three steps, you've done the first.
1) Drag out a WHITE circle over the area of your image you want circular.
For placement, you can temporarily, reduce the opacity so you can see through your circle. You must set it back to 100% for the next steps, though! You can change the opacity in the Layers panel. Select the circle object, then click on the arrow next to the number 100 and drag it down.

2) Select both your image and the circle you just dragged out
Once you create your circle, it's selected. The easy thing here is to hold your CTRL key (if you're on Windows, I think it's Option on a Mac) and click on your photo. You can also use your selection tool and click and drag an area that includes parts of both your photo and your circle. Or, you can use the Layers panel: click on one object then CTRL-click on the other.

3) Modify > Mask > Group as Mask.
A mask is somewhat like an old fashioned stencil. For your mask/stencil, you create a second image. White parts of your mask are the places where your picture will show through. (You can make more complex masks, but let's not get into that here.) For now, go to your menu and click on Modify, then Mask, then Group as Mask.

Using a mask doesn't crop the image, it only changes what parts show through the mask.