Drawing Circular Selections

The Elliptical Marquee Tool also allows us to easily draw selections in the shape of a perfect circle. In fact, just as we saw with the Rectangular Marquee Tool when we constrained it to a perfect square, there's two ways to draw a circle with the Elliptical Marquee Tool. One way is by setting some options in the Options Bar at the top of the screen.

Here's a photo I have open of the moon. Let's say I want to select the moon so I can add it to a different photo. Since the shape of the moon is circular (at least as it appears to us earthlings in a 2D photo), the Elliptical Marquee Tool is an obvious choice for selecting it:

Whenever you have the Elliptical Marquee Tool selected, the Options Bar will display options specifically for this tool, and for the most part, the options are the same as what you'll find with the Rectangular Marquee Tool. One of the options is called Style, and by default, it's set to Normal, which allows us to draw any elliptical shape we want. To constrain the shape of the selection to a perfect circle, change the Style option to Fixed Ratio. By default, Photoshop will set the Width and Height values in the Options Bar to 1, which constrains the width-to-height aspect ratio of the selection to 1:1, creating a perfect circle:

To draw a circular selection around the moon, I'll click and hold my mouse button down somewhere above the top left of the moon to set my starting point, then I'll drag down towards the bottom right until I have the moon selected. As I drag out the selection, it will be constrained to a perfect circle thanks to the options we set in the Options Bar. Unfortunately, I'll run into the same problem here with the selection outline moving further and further away from my starting point as I drag out the selection, so I'll need to hold down my spacebar a few times to reposition the selection as I draw it. When I'm done, I'll release my mouse button to complete the selection:

The Keyboard Shortcut
While there's technically nothing wrong with changing the settings in the Options Bar to constrain the selection outline to a circle, it can quickly become frustrating because Photoshop does not automatically set the Style option back to Normal when you're done, which means you'll have to remember to always change it back yourself, otherwise you'll still be in Fixed Ratio mode the next time you try to draw an elliptical selection.

A better way to constrain the selection to a circle is to simply hold down your Shift key as you're drawing it. Just as adding the Shift key will constrain a rectangular selection to a square when using the Rectangular Marquee Tool, it will force the selection into a perfect circle with the Elliptical Marquee Tool.

Keep in mind, though, that the order in which you do things is important. Click and begin dragging out your selection, then hold down the Shift key to constrain the selection to a circle and continue dragging. When you're done, release your mouse button to complete the selection, then release the Shift key. If you don't follow the correct order, you could get unexpected results.

Drawing Selections From The Center

You can also draw elliptical selections from the center outward, which is often an easier way to work with the Elliptical Marquee Tool. Simply click in the center of the object or area you need to select, then hold down your Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key and continue dragging. As soon as you press and hold the Alt / Option key, the spot you initially clicked on will become the center point of the selection, and as you continue dragging, the selection will extend out in all directions from that point.

Again, the order in which you do things in important. Click and drag to begin the selection, then press and hold Alt / Option to constrain the selection to a circle and continue dragging. When you're done, release your mouse button to complete the selection, then release the Alt / Option key.

You can drag out a circular selection from its center as well. Just add the Shift key to the keyboard shortcut. Click and drag to begin the selection, then press and hold Shift+Alt (Win) / Shift+Option (Mac) to constrain the selection to a circle and force the selection out from its center. Continue dragging out the selection, and when you're done, release your mouse button to complete it, then release your Shift and Alt / Option keys:

Now that I have the moon selected, I'll open up a second photo, this time of a city at night, and with both images open in separate document windows, I'll select Photoshop's Move Tool from the Tools panel:

With the Move Tool selected, I'll hold down my Alt (Win ) / Option (Mac) key, then I'll click inside the selection and drag the moon into the second image. Holding down the Alt / Option key here tells Photoshop to create a copy of the moon rather than cutting it out of the photo:

Since the moon is looking a little too big for the second image, I'll press Ctrl+T (Win) / Command+T (Mac) to bring up Photoshop's Free Transform command to resize it, holding the Shift key down as I drag the corner handles inward. This constrain the moon's width-to-height ratio so I don't accidentally distort the shape of it as I'm resizing it:

You can also use the Free Transform command to move objects around inside the document window simply by clicking inside of the Free Transform bounding box and dragging the object to a new location. I think I'll move the moon over to the top right side of the tower. To exit out of the Free Transform command, I'll press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) on my keyboard:

The stars in the night sky were added using our Create A Starry Sky In Photoshop tutorial.

Removing A Selection

When you're done with a selection that you've created with the Elliptical Marquee Tool and you no longer you need it, there's three ways to remove it. You can go up to the Select menu at the top of the screen and choose Deselect:

You can also use the faster keyboard shortcut Ctrl+D (Win) / Command+D (Mac). Or, with the Elliptical Marquee Tool still selected, simply click anywhere inside the document window to remove the selection.

We'll continue our journey through Photoshop's many selection tools with one that allows us to draw freehand selections around objects in a photo as if we were outlining them on paper with a pen or pencil - the Lasso Tool!

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