Still struggling with Elements 8 - drawing a circle

[SimonW]

I sometimes have a photo in which I want to draw attention to a small part by drawing a circle round it. It's very simple in Paaint Shop Pro but I cannot find how to do it in Elements 8. Elements' so-called circle tool actually draws a disk, thus covering the part of the photo I want to draw a circle round. Surely it can't be difficult? I must be missing something but once again the help system just isn't any help at all.

[anglefire]

I don't have elements, but tried it in CS4.

Pressing the shift key when you use the ellipse tool makes a perfect circle. Pressing the ALT (On PC) centers the ellipse (Circle) around where you clicked on the image (I didn't know that till I tried!)

As you correctly say, you get a filled disk in whatever colour was the foreground. If you change the layer style, then you can make the picture show though depending on what style you use. If you then add an effect, then you can draw a stroke around the outside.

For example, if you use white as the foreground, change the layer style to darken, the picture shows through. Then add a stroke in say black, then you get a line around the circle.

If you use white and change the layer style to overlay, it makes the circle "Fill" the underlying image but lighter so emphasizes it quite nicely!

I'm sure there is a different way of doing this - but this is just one!

I also hope it works in Elements too!

[SimonW]

Thanks for trying, but (as with Elements so-called colour curves tool, which cannot separately adjust the red blue and green channels) it seems the circle tool is badly named - it's actually a disk tool.

(Elements does as you suggest have the elipse tool which has options to draw a perfect "circle" (actually a disk) in various ways, such as starting from the centre, and of course several of the options you've suggested can also do the job. And I found another way - overlaying two disks, merging down and simplifying, then selecting and deleting the inner one. But they're all so complicated! I'd have thought just drawing a circle would be something lots of people would want, and should be simple.)

[anglefire]

Ok, I've just looked on the help for CS4 and it suggests the following:

Draw a circle using the ellipse tool.

Using Edit and Stroke, draw a stroke around the marque of the desired colour, thickness etc.

You can also fill (Same menu, but different option!) - but thats what you don't want to do!!

[Oly Paul]

Elements is a little different than CS and I'm afraid any of Marks suggestions using the ellipse tool will not work in Elements as you cannot add a stroke to the selection.

But as usall there is always a work around so try this.

1- Using the ellipse tool draw a black circle, any size will do for now.
2-Now hit V on the keyboard and using the bounding box resize and move the circle to where you want it and click on the green tick to commit the change.
3-Now change the overlay mode of the circle layer to lighten.
4-Now Control click inside the white circle in your layers pallete, this will select the circle with marching ants, press control + E to merge the selection
5-Now  you can use edit stroke outline to your circle.

Your friendly Elements expert. 

[anglefire]

Thanks Paul for putting me right!


I think I will keep out of advice for Elements from now on - its too different!

[Oly Paul]

Thanks Paul for putting me right!


I think I will keep out of advice for Elements from now on - its too different!

Mark don't do that as most things in CS4 are applicable to Elements as they both use the same engine.

To be honest the easiest way is to use the "Ellipticle Marquee Tool" and use stroke as in CS4 , but in Elements you cannot transform or move the selection without a add on, and you know how hard it is to put a circle exactly the right size and place if you cannot adjust it. Which is why I gave instructions using the Ellipse tool.

Now I just need to know if it worked for Simon.

[SimonW]

Hi Oly,

Thank you for your help with this. As you can see I've managed to do it - after a couple of false starts due to my own stupidity. (I was trying to circle Mars and initially the black circle on black sky threw me, but now I understand what you were saying I'm sure that'll be OK too.) Having now discovered several ways, your is by far the best. Two points: You can set the circle tool to draw from the desired centre point, which is much easier than trying to move it afterwards when you can't see what's behind unless you reduce the opacity, and wouldn't it be nice if you could see a preview of the stroke while adjusting its size.

So it does work, but it's still much fiddlier than such a task should be. Thanks again.

Just for the circle technique

[anglefire]

Thanks Paul for putting me right!


I think I will keep out of advice for Elements from now on - its too different!

Mark don't do that as most things in CS4 are applicable to Elements as they both use the same engine.

To be honest the easiest way is to use the "Ellipticle Marquee Tool" and use stroke as in CS4 , but in Elements you cannot transform or move the selection without a add on, and you know how hard it is to put a circle exactly the right size and place if you cannot adjust it. Which is why I gave instructions using the Ellipse tool.

Now I just need to know if it worked for Simon.

Well, its worked for Simon, which is good.

The problem, I guess for me to give advice on Elements is that I don't know the differences to know when to keep me gob shut

And most of what I know about CS4 is via trial and error together with several books!!

But I will try and help when I can!

[Oly Paul]

Hi Oly,

Having now discovered several ways, your is by far the best. Two points: You can set the circle tool to draw from the desired centre point, which is much easier than trying to move it afterwards when you can't see what's behind unless you reduce the opacity, and wouldn't it be nice if you could see a preview of the stroke while adjusting its size.

So it does work, but it's still much fiddlier than such a task should be. Thanks again.

Simon theres nothing to stop you changing the blend mode to lighten before hitting V on the key board, then you will just have a circle outline which you can move and resize.