design: creating rounded edges on images
We’ve all seen them, images with cleanly rounded edges. But, if you haven’t spent some time in photoshop, you may not know exactly how to go about creating these effects yourself in a way that’s straightforward, and doesn’t require the use of a plug in or action.
We’ll start with an image. Now, we have scaled this one down a little so that it will fit on our page, but yours can be any size.
Here is ours:
Next, we will (using photoshop) select the Rounded Rectangle Tool. You can select anything you want for the radius (this controls how rounded your edges are), we chose 30px. Drag and create your rectangle over the area you would like to make rounded. If you are trying to create a perfect square, you can hold down shift as you drag to keep the proportions intact.
Here’s where we are now:
Next, making sure that the vector layer is selected (click on your shape in the toolbar until you see the small white border around it, as in our image above) click on “Fill” and change this value to 0. You should now see nothing but a thin white outline where the box once was visible. Move the box around a little if desired to get it perfectly around the area you wish to copy.
Here’s how it should look:
Next, select the “Paths” tab, you’ll find it just to the right of “Layers” and “Channels” on your toolbar. You’ll see a small icon on the right hand side with three horizontal lines. Click on that icon and select “Make Selection.”
Press OK at the next screen prompt.
Next, click “Edit” in the header menu and select “Copy Merged.” Open a new document and press paste, or paste directly into the current document. Your end result should be a nice, clean and clear rounded image.
Here’s what we have to show for our work:
Compatibility:
This method requires Adobe Photoshop or similar.
That’s all folks!
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