How to make a circular selection of a photo

[Paul25094789zfkz]

I have taken a photo of a round plate.  I want to save the photo only showing the round plate, but I cannot get the elliptical marquee tool to give me a circle of just the plate without including some of the background.  Any help would be appreciated.

[Peru Bob]

Make the selection.

Select > Transform Selection and drag the selection as needed and press the Enter key or click the green arrow.

Select > Inverse and press the Delete key.

[Paul25094789zfkz]

Bear with me as I am a novice.  When you say "make the selection I am not sure what to do.  Here is what I tried. I have the photo in the Photo Editor.  I click Select > All and the marching ants are around the square photo. I don't see a way to select just the round plate in the middle of the photo. I click Select > Inverse and press delete and it says that no pixels were selected. I then tried drawing a circle around the round plate but I cannot get it to match up with the round plate using the elliptical marquee tool.  I tried Select > Modify and then Border and then it let me draw a circle around the plate but then I have all these little squares around the plate and inside a portion of the plate.  So what am I missing?

[Greg_S.]

Is the plate a perfect circle in the photo (or is it a distorted eliptical shape)?  To create a perfect circle, use the Shift key and click and drag the elipsis tool over the plate.  You can also use the Alt key after you click the center of the circle/plate and drag a perfect circle out from the center.  For more information about selections and each of the selection tools, see this portion of the User Guide.

You haven't told us which version of Elements you are using.  If you are using a recent version, you may find that there are other tools available that will make creating a selection of the plate easier.  For example, in the following screenshot, I used the Select Subject button to select a plate and it worked fairly well:

You may find that the Auto Selection tool will do what you want by simply dragging a square marquis around the plate.  Frankly, the eliptical marquis is one of the more difficult tools to make a selection.

If you need more help, I suggest you post the photo you are working on and we may have other suggestions.  There are usually multiple ways to perform a task in Elements.

[Paul25094789zfkz]

Thanks for the advice.  I have PSE2022.  I was finally able to figure it out and using the 'refine selection brush" was able to clean it up.  Really appreciate the input!