Making round corner rectangles in Photoshop

Marvin from Silverston, Florida, using Photoshop 7.01 with XP Home, writes in with:
[Quote:] I would like to be able to round the corners of pictures. All of my pictures are either oval or square. Is there a way to use the Marquee tool and get a rounded corner. Your help would be appreciated.

Round corners are as easy as clicking and dragging...

Marvin, Get ready for rounded corners:

Tap the letter "U"

Observe this selects the "Vector Shape Tool"

Behind the square box, in the pull out, you'll find a round corner rectangle tool.

Depending on what you want to do with it, there it is.

For simply selecting and forming a border for your pictures, observe in the Options bar, and click the second button from the left. Hover the cursor to confirm that it is the "Create Work Path" tool.

Now draw your shape to fit the photo you wish to crop.

The Space Bar while dragging the shape will allow you to reposition the shape. Alt/Click/drag begins the shape from the CENTER of the shape at the location you click. (Mac: Opt)

Once you've drawn the shape, open the Windows > Paths palette and observe you now have a work path for the rectangle.

Double click the path name to save it. (if you want it saved.)

Click the "Make Selection" button (Left of the "New Path" button)

Click in the blank area below the path in the Path Palette (turns off "view" path)

Return to Layers and you should have an active selection where the path was.

Choose menu: Select > Inverse

and delete, fill with a color or what have you. Now it is a selection just like any other.

:-) That's all there is to it.

TIP: In the Options Bar, where the different Vector Shape Tools shapes are displayed as buttons, select the "Round Corner Rectangle" then click the "down arrow" at the end of the row of shapes.

This opens the "Geometry Palette" where you can configure your corner radius, and actual size and shape of the path in case you are working with specific sizes, etc.

Please keep us informed of progress.
Best regards,
THE PHOTOSHOP 911 RAPID RESPONSE TEAM
http://www.photoshop911.com/emergency.html

Comments

[michelle r]

awesome! and being a beginner in photoshop, i could understand the instructions. thanks so much!

[dora]

Thanks for there great info. Here is another round corner generator: http://www.roundz.net/

[ayla]

hey there.

i have photoshop Cs2.. so none of this really works.
could you maybe explain it to me for cs2?

it's be much appreciated :D

[Angelina]

Thanks so much :]

[Bub Ba]

Doesn't work.

Here's what I get when i try to delete my inverse selection:

"could not complete your request because the content of the layer is not directly editable"

[Rich Boy]

Thanks man. This really is the best tutorial on making rounded corners in photoshop.

I read at least 5 others and they recommend using the modify, smooth method, but that crops a few pixels off the whole image and thats not what I need.

I had to read your tutorial a few times to actually understand it, but it was worth it because now I forever know how to make rounded corners of any size. Once again, Thanks!

Rich Boy
http://www.TheRichBoy.com

[vijaysuman]

How to crop rounded corners of rounded rectangle

[katuska305]

great this helped me a lot thank you (:

[Jeff]

On making a rounded corner using a path, when I try to select inverse, THE INVERSE IS GREYED OUT _ WHY?

[Jeff]

How do you take a jpg picture file and round the corners ?

The picture is square. You can't select it with a rounded rectangle tool because that is for creating a rectangle from scratch.

JEFF

[DS]

perfect and simple... thank you do much!

[Derek Kerl]

The summary Alex made in the comments was pretty helpful...

; D

[rel]

Does this tutorial work with Photoshop CS2??

[Tison]

This is exactly what i was looking for, thank you. I wish there was a rounded rectangle marquee tool to cut the steps down - is there? Is there a way to create a tool (that may be asking alot there). I'm using 7.0 so it may even already be in the latest version, anyways thanks guys very helpful

[Das Brain]

You know I have to say that this is probably the best and only instructions that got it right or correct.
I went to alot of other Google search results for Photoshop rounded rectangle crop and they all had bad unclear, and fluffy instructions.
Photoshop911, thanks for the great short and accurate instructions, all I wanted to do was to crop a small picture and your site has taken out the frustration.

I've bookmarked Photoshop911, and will put it in my blogroll in the near future. Regards.

Das Brain
MoneyAccumulator.com

[Geo]

I thought it's much harder than this. But it is so easy. THX

[Alex]

how do you do a round corner rectangle on photoshop 5.0? I've been trying and can't find a tool or anything... :(

[ea]

Summary:

1. Create a path > Rounded rectangle
2. Convert path to selection > Paths panel which one next to Layers panel
3. Inverse the selection then cut

[justin]

i don't get the active selection in layers? what's wrong? i can make the paths and the shape but when i go back, there's no active.

[Garrett]

Thanks for the tutorial! Saved me a few hours of messing around in CS2 =)

[Dave]

Perfect tutorial. I would have spent another hour trying to figure it out before giving up... Thanks!

[Rob]

What a wonderful site! Very helpful.
Thank you.

[Marcel]

You can easily add rounded corners to your images online at: http://www.online-image-editor.com

You can specify the radius, and even have a border color

[lily]

i didnt understand anything. =(

[Scott]

I've been all over the net looking for a simple solution for rounding corners to photos in PhotoShop and this was the best that I found.

I'm still trying to get a feel for using PS and it seems that some complicated tasks are easy and some easy tasks are complicated.

Thanks for the easy-to-use, works-like-a-charm instructions.