Photoshop Circle Crop Question

[RacePhoto]

I hope that defines it enough to be specific from the world of Photoshop questions?

I going nuts and searching and I'm probably just missing something obvious, but I'm trying to crop a circular object, and get a perfect circle, only of the object. (or make it a circle from an imperfect scan) The edges are not clear enough to just use the selection tool. This is from a scan not a photo, so although the original is not a perfect circle and there is a shadow, because it's a scan, I'm trying to figure out how to get a perfect circle and position it, so I get a circle crop. It's driving me nuts!

I can make a circle, but I can't get it positioned. And yes I understand it's not a circle crop, it's going to be a square with white around the subject.

Think coins, medallions, casino chips, or wooden nickels, or that kind of thing. Here's a not so special scan, but you can see the situation. The desired result would have a white surrounding area to isolate the poker chip. The shadow is because the scanner light makes a shadow from the thickness of the subject.

Is there a way to make a specific size and then move it, or a way to drag and make it the right size and then reposition that? A way to make a perfect circle - holding the shift key - that I can adjust and position?

 

[Ysarex]

I hope that defines it enough to be specific from the world of Photoshop questions?

I going nuts and searching and I'm probably just missing something obvious, but I'm trying to crop a circular object, and get a perfect circle, only of the object. (or make it a circle from an imperfect scan) The edges are not clear enough to just use the selection tool. This is from a scan not a photo, so although the original is not a perfect circle and there is a shadow, because it's a scan, I'm trying to figure out how to get a perfect circle and position it, so I get a circle crop. It's driving me nuts!

I can make a circle, but I can't get it positioned. And yes I understand it's not a circle crop, it's going to be a square with white around the subject.

Think coins, medallions, casino chips, or wooden nickels, or that kind of thing. Here's a not so special scan, but you can see the situation. The desired result would have a white surrounding area to isolate the poker chip. The shadow is because the scanner light makes a shadow from the thickness of the subject.

Is there a way to make a specific size and then move it, or a way to drag and make it the right size and then reposition that? A way to make a perfect circle - holding the shift key - that I can adjust and position?


View attachment 260433

Use the Elliptical marquee tool plus Shift key to click/drag a circle. Then without changing tools you can click inside the circle and drag it into position. From the Select menu Modify/Expand or Contract to increase or decrease the circle size.

 

[wfooshee]

I'll just add that if you hold the Alt and Shift together (press and hold Alt first then hold Shift,) you can start the circle selection in the center of the object rather than dragging from the top left of the selection area. Also, any time you put the selection tool inside the selected area and drag, you drag the selection around to move it. That applies to whatever shape the selection is.

 

[RacePhoto]

Alright, great help! I'll try learning both.

By the way, free editing software, Photoscape does circle crop, but I'd rather learn how to use Elements since I knew there had to be a way to do this.

Thanks for the help, I tried one.

After I asked and yes I have tried before, but never got a good consistent result. I was thinking since they are all scanned at the same dpi, I could create a mask, the right size, and then use that.

But the Shift + ALT and then expand contract for fine adjustment, is the answer.

I'll add that I don't always get everything perfect on the scanner, so I used the rotate, and fixed that too.

Small additional note: I have 2 years free CC now and I still haven't activated it.