how do I draw a circle? duh

[ctctc-MNXNIJ]

how do I draw a circle in photoshop elements 8 on a photograph highlighting a feature in the photo that I would like to point out to someone?

I have opened the photograph and it is the only layer.

I can create as many layers as I want. So I create one.

when the "edit" tab is active, there is no ellipse tool.

when I click on the "create" tab, then the ellipse tool is present, but the layers area has disappeared.

when I click on the ellipse tool and draw my circle, it draws a solid circle obscuring what I would like to highlight. The "stroke [outline] selection" on the edit menu is grayed out.

what am I missing?

[markerline]

Not sure if this is the case for PE but in standard Photoshop you can use the Circular(Elliptical) marquee tool and drag-select a circular area around your focal subject and then stroke that selection using Edit>Stroke . . .

[Barbara_B_ · Accepted solution]

Yep, exactly the same in PSE. If you want a perfect circle, hold shift and drag with the elliptical marquee, then Edit>Stroke (outline) Selection.

[john544602]

Note that there are two ellipse-shaped tools in Elements:  the Elliptical Marquee Tool (keyboard shortcut M) and the Ellipse Tool (keyboard shortcut U).  The technique described by others for drawing an ellipse (or circle) uses the Elliptical Marquee Tool (which is a  selection tool), NOT the Ellipse Tool (which is a drawing tool for creating a solid (filled) ellipse (or circle)).  The Edit/Stroke (Outline) Selection option is available for the Elliptical Marquee Tool, but not for the Ellipse Tool.  (This is pretty un-obvious, eh?  When one wishes to draw an ellipse, one would reasonably think you'd use a drawing tool, not a selection tool!)

[MXUser_]

john544602 hightlights a key point that I was missing.  Others mentioned the Elliptical Marquee Tool, but he pointed out that it's easy to go the solid shape tool by mistake.  This helped me.

[mytimbuk2]

I've worked on this in PSE 10, but how do you apply, or get rid of the crawling ants? I can view the white circle,  I've saved it, but no circle is there.