Photoshop Question - Oval Crop

[Pete Simmons]

Ok - I know how to crop with a rectangle but how do I crop an oval shape out of a photo?

This is for use on black marble so selecting an oval gives me an oval shape within a transparent square that ends up being a black background. Thus negating the oval effect I was looking for.

[Mike Mackenzie]

Pete,

I would just draw your oval in Corel and then power clip the photo into the Oval you can then move it to what you want and then laser it. It will only laser what you see in the oval. Power clipping is under EFFECTS in Corel 12. I think it is in the same area in other versions of Corel as well.

[Aaron Koehl]

I would recommend powerclipping the oval in Corel. However, if you want to use PhotoShop, CTRL+Click the oval layer in the Layers palette. This will give you an oval selection. Select the layer with your photo on it, and press Ctrl+J to create a layer with an oval crop. (You can hide the other layers).

Alternatively, you can select the oval, switch layer to your photo, then Invert Selection, then just press delete to remove everything outside of the oval.

[Chris Cordina]

In Corel under Effects - Creative - Viginette it will give you an oval that can be feathered and enlarged. Also other shapes. Fast and easy.

[Roy Brewer]

This is for use on black marble so selecting an oval gives me an oval shape within a transparent square that ends up being a black background.

Pete,

I may be wrong, but I suspect the simplest solution for what you describe is to use CorelDRAW's Bitmap>Creative>Vignette. If you'll fiddle a bit with the colors(black or white), I think you'll find this is the effect you seek.

If you really need to crop it, the posts of others are as good as any of several methods.

[Pete Simmons]

Thanks for all the great ideas. Again you have opened up new ideas and areas for me to follow.

[Alina Roata]

Hi Pete,

I have a bad experience with inserting photos on powerclips and then laser them.
In my case, I noticed that I get some sort of pattern of vertical lines over the photo after lasering. The same photo cropped in Photoshop worked without a problem.

What I do in this case is, as it was suggested, make an oval selection (using the tool provided in Photoshop) and position it where I need it.Then I invert the selection and background erase the rest of the photo. Crop the result as close to the oval size and save the result as .psd. Then import the psd in the Corel file.
Since I background erased the other part, it doesn't appear as white (black) in Corel, so it doesn't engrave.

When I will be able to use the Internet again at work, I will post a picture of a metal plate engraved with a photo inserted in a powerclip, so you can see the lines I talk about. It happened more than once, and only when I used the powerclip feature.

I didn't mention, but I dont use Photograv, since I don't have it. Maybe for those who use it the powerclip works fine...

Alina

[Dan Racette]

If you end up doing it photoshop, you could do a vector path. Depending on the version, a vector mask, or a clipping mask, or possibly converting it to a 1bit tiff file after filling the vector shape. I guess it depend on what type of output you need to send to your machine.

I could pretty much answer any specific photoshop questions if you want, as I am a photoretoucher for a living.

dan