Articles : Tutorials - Digital

Creating Rounded Corners

I love the look of rounded corners, and I used to be so confused as to how to get them.  As with many digital techniques, there is more than one way to go about getting this look.  This is the easiest and quickest way I have found, and the easiest to edit if you need to make any changes. 

All instructions and screenshots come from Photoshop CS 3.  The steps should be the same for Photoshop Elements but depending on your version, the tools may be called by another name and found in different locations.

Open your document, and select your shape tool from the tool bar.  Choose the Rounded Rectangle by either clicking on the flyout corner or choosing the shape at the top.

Before drawing your shape, choose the size or roundness of your corners by adjusting the radius amount.

Here are a few examples of different radius increments so you can have an idea of where you want to start.

After setting your radius, use the crosshairs to draw your shape.  Import the picture or paper you want to "cut" in to this shape and place it on the layer above the shape.  At this point you can do two different things--

The clipping mask method-

                 Right click on your image (making sure it is above the shape layer), and choose create clipping mask (ctrl+alt+G).  This will make everything outside of the shape layer invisible.  It is not "cut" and you can adjust the size or roation of the image at anytime by using the Transform function (ctrl+T).  To keep the image proportions always hold down Shift while you adjust the corner points.

After adjustment

You can adjust the image again at anytime by selecting the image layer.  This is how a clipped image looks in your layers palette.

 

The cutting method-

With this techinique you must adjust the image first and will not be able to edit again later on, without reimporting the image. 

With your cursor over the shape, press ctrl this will turn your cursor in to a hand with a dashed square.  Click on the shape while your cursor is in this state.  This will make the "marching ants" around the shape. 

You can also right click on the layer, "rasterize" it, and then go to Layers>Load Selection. 

Then select the inverse (shift+ctrl+i) to choose the parts of the image outside of the shape and cut (ctrl+x). 

 

If you do the cutting method you can delete your shape layer after cutting your image, or use it to cut the same shape from other images. 

If you do the clipping method, you must merge (ctrl+e) the image layer with the shape layer to get one layer.  Deleteing the shape layer will return the image layer to its true shape.  If you want to make several of the same shape with different images, you must right click on the shape layer, "duplicate layer", and repeat the directions to clip the images.

Good luck and have fun!

About the author ...
Jackie (Camsmomma) started digital scrapbooking in May of 2005. She has one wonderful son and a little girl on the way.

Submitted by CamsMomma