"itten" wrote in message
I was wondering the best method for drawing a circle or oval around an item on the canvas so as to highlight it.
Do you mean a "vignette", where the subject is surrounded by an oval or circular "window" for want of a better word. The edges of which usually fade as well?
If so, this is realy an easy way to do it ( it takes longer to read it than it does to execute it.
Open your image and copy the background layer.
You now have two layers.
Hit D on the keyboard to make your fore/background colours black and white. With the background layer active (selected) hit ctrl+backspace, this will fill the background layer with white.
Make your background copy layer active (select it) and draw your circle or oval on to it with the circular marquee tool.
On the options bar set your feathering to 30-40 pixels, (higher the number the more the blur)
Now for the magic bit, on the layers palette, click on the third icon from the left, a square with a circle in it (add layer mask).
That’s it. If you didn’t mean this, I have wasted my time ;}
MH
You should now have your