elliptical marquee tool

[Cari35140126ha2w]

i need help! does anyone know why i can't fill this circle? the fill option isn't available. plssss help

 

[kevin stohlmeyer]

@Cari35140126ha2w is the layer locked or a smart object? Take a screenshot (Shift+Cmd+3 on Mac) with the layers panel showing and post it.

[Cari35140126ha2w]

ok it's working for some reason now? i used the regular ellipse tool instead of the marquee ellipse tool. i'm just gonna start using that instead of the marquee one. but what did i do wrong in the beginning? (i used ellipse 1 gaussian blur)

 

[kevin stohlmeyer]

@Cari35140126ha2w What happens if you go to Edit>Fill or use the paint bucket icon directly below in the Contextual Task Bar?

[Cari35140126ha2w]

ahhhhh i see. i was using the elliptical tool to draw/create a circle. i wasn't aware of it being a tool to cut out a shape. i just got photoshop last week lol

[Myra Ferguson]

The regular Ellipse tool draws a shape that can have a fill and/or a stroke applied. When you draw with the Ellipse tool or other shape tools, Photoshop creates a new shape layer for you.

The Elliptical Marquee tool draws a selection that you can then fill with a color. 

When you fill a selection (whether it's made with the Elliptical Marquee tool or any other selection tool such as the Lasso tool or the Quick Selection tool), Photoshop fills it with pixels. To fill a selection with pixels, you have to have a layer selected that can have pixels applied. If no layer is selected, then Photoshop doesn't have a place to put the pixel fill.

Your Layers panel option has the thumbnails set to None, so it only shows an icon that represents the type of layers you have (as opposed to the icon over a thumbnail of what is on the layer). The layers that have brush icon can have pixel fills. The layers that can't have a pixel fill applied from your screenshot are the ones with T (text layers) and the document icon with a square (Smart Objects). You would also need to make sure that you have a layer selected. 

[kevin stohlmeyer]

@Myra Ferguson the original screen shot showed the paintbucket grayed out - meaning it was either not on a selected layer or a locked layer. The new screenshot shows the paintbucket as available meaning @Cari35140126ha2w should be able to fill this selection now using various methods.

[Cari35140126ha2w]

ahhhhh i see. i was using the elliptical tool to draw/create a circle. i wasn't aware of it being a tool to cut out a shape. i just got photoshop last week lol

[Myra Ferguson]

Oh, no worries. It can take a little while to learn.

Feel free to post any additional new questions to the Community. 🙂

[Myra Ferguson]

Your screenshots don't show your Layers panel, but I suspect either you don't have a layer selected or you have a layer selected that isn't a raster layer such as a shape layer or a Smart Object.

Click the + button at the bottom of the Layers panel to make a new layer. Then you should be able to fill your selection.