I want to crop a photo into different shapes such as an oval, a circle or a heart. How do I do that? The shape tool doesn't seem to accomplish what I want - it puts the shape over the photo like a mask.

Sorry if this question may seem basic but I just started using Photoshop and I can find anything in help that covers this topic.

alpha_papa

Create a heart shaped mask, with the image layer selected you then can drag the mask remnants to another do***ent - eg: a new transparent do***ent if desired, via a selection.

Try loading the shape via a selection as an Alpha Channel, which can then act as the mask itself - or maybe freehand it via Quick Mask (with a ragged brush for a nice effect if you like).

Happy Valentine's Day ;-)

Adam.

nick_decker

"The shape tool doesn't seem to accomplish what I want - it puts the shape
over the photo like a mask."


Or, once you have your heart shape in place, Ctrl click that layer to create a selection. Drag the heart shape layer to the trash. Go to Select>Inverse, then hit delete. Like Adam said, Happy Valentine's Day.

Nick

Or,
1. Ctrl + click on the heart shape layer to select it...(indicated by a
dancing marquee/ or marching ants as some call it)
2. copy the image in question into the clipboard
3. then go 'Edit/Paste Into'

this will create the new layer and the mask in one shot, based on
theprevious selection.

cheers
heathrowe

create a selection. Drag the heart shape layer to the trash. Go to
Select>Inverse, then hit delete. Like Adam said, Happy Valentine's Day.

Or when drawing the path, use the 2nd pen tool regular path. Save and use that as your clipping path.

time saver. draw half the heart as a path, copy and flip it.

robert_levine

Heathrowe,

I've taken the liberty of editing out your autoquote. It's not necessary here and tends clutter things up a bit.

Please turn that feature off in your newsreader when posting to these forums and simply quote only the appropriate parts of the post you are replying to.

Thanks,

Bob

john_r_nielsen

If the image is on a named layer (not 'Background') and the path is just a path, not a Shape Layer, just Layer > Add Vector Mask > Current Path.

phosphor

Just a point of technical clarification:

"Cropping" an image has generally come to mean that the starting image has edges removed, and the resulting image's outline is a rectangle.

Any other final shape is said to be "masked" or "clipped".

philo_calhoun

The symbol font using Alt-0169 has a heart, if you don't want to draw it with the pen tool. You can use this as a mask.