Tutorial: Creating an Image with Rounded Corners and Transparency

[charliemc]

Would you like to create an image with rounded corners -- that includes a transparent background? It's really easy to make!

Important Note: This tutorial covers how to to create rounded corners -- but not how to Save an image with a transparent background. To find out how to do the Save, check this tutorial.

We'll end up with something like this:


...or this:


Let's get started, shall we?

1. Open PSP7.
   
   
2. Open your image. I'm using the following image for this tutorial -- feel free to use it to follow along!
   
   
   
3. Go to your Tool Palette and click on the Selection Tool. (By default the Tool Palette is located on the left-hand side of your Workspace.)
   
   
4. If your Tool Options Palette isn't open, you'll need to open it now. Click on the 'Toggle Tool Options Window' button in the Standard Toolbar -- or go to View > Toolbars. Put a checkmark beside Tool Options Palette and click the Close button.
   
   
5. Now that you've got the Tool Options Palette open, use these settings for the Selection Tool:
   Selection type: Rounded Square OR Rounded Rectangle (if you want a perfectly square image, then use the first -- otherwise use the second)
   Feather: 0
   Antialias: checked/selected
   
   
   
   
   Before you proceed, you need to promote the image you're working to into a Raster layer! This is easy to do.
   
   
6. Go to Layers > Promote to Layer.
   
   
   
7. Now take your Selection Tool and use it to select a portion of your image. To use the tool, click and drag it downward and toward the right (or left) in a diagonal movement. When you release the mouse button your selection will appear.
   
   
   
   
   
   
8. Go to Selections > Invert. This changes the selected area from the rounded square/rectangle to the area surrounding it.
   
   
   
   
   
   
9. On your keyboard, press the Delete key.
   
   
   
   You've now got your rounded square (or rectangle), with a transparent background!
   
   
10. Go to Selections > Select None.
    
    
    
    You have two choices here, by the way.
    
    
11. If you only want the corners to be transparent, then Copy your image and Paste as New Image.
    
    This will automatically eliminate the transparent area surrounding the image. You can then close the original without Saving it -- and keep the new image to save.
    
    
12. If you want to leave a transparent 'border' all the way around your image, then either take your Crop Tool and crop around the (original) image before Saving.
    
    
13. OR you can do what I described in step -- then go to Image > Canvas Size.
    
    This opens up the Change Canvas Size window. There you'll see the original size. Just increase it slightly next to 'New width' and 'New height' -- then click OK.
    
    Hint: You can decide whether or not to center the image on the 'canvas' when using the Canvas Size option -- but you can also take the Mover Tool to place the image any place you want on the transparent canvas!
    
    That does it! You've now got an image with rounded corners that's ready to be saved!
    
    Oh! And if you want to use this for an icon, simply resize a large image down to under 100 x 100 pixels in size. I recommend starting out with a larger image and then resizing, rather than using a smaller image, if you can -- because it's much easier to work with! Besides, you'll get a nicer rounding of the corners... (smile)
    
    
    
    Note: There are other ways to get rounded corners on an image, by the way. You can use the template method, which works quite well! This is only one way, but hopefully it will prove helpful to some people...
    
    Once again, for how to properly Save the image with the transparency intact, be sure to see this tutorial.

Actually easy to do, isn't it?

By the way, this will work with other Selection types, as well -- such as Circles, Triangles, Stars, etc. Fun, isn't it?

==CharlieMC, assistant moderator