How to draw an arbitrary circle or an even circle in Photoshop. How to draw an arbitrary circle or an even circle in Photoshop Constructing a circle without a compass


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Good day, dear readers. It's been a while since I wrote a tutorial on Photoshop. We need to fix it urgently. Today we’ll talk about one very simple thing that will be useful for both in and other elements for websites, and just for beautiful pictures and postcards.

Now you will learn how to draw a circle in Photoshop. It's very simple, fast and interesting. I'll also show you a few interesting options for making your own modern materials for the site, posts for groups in in social networks or just postcards that you won’t be ashamed to send to friends.

How to draw simple, even and beautiful circles

The first thing you need to do is open Photoshop. Don't forget that you have the opportunity to take advantage online version pixlr.com .

I never tire of saying that you shouldn’t pay attention to simple (or other) options like Paint or some other nonsense. Learn to work in professional programs.

Now you will read an article about solving one problem, tomorrow about another, and in a year you will be able to complete very cool projects, even if you did not intend to do this at all. Set global goals for yourself. But let's return to the main topic.

Create a new document.

Let's say it will be 500 x 500 pixels in size. It doesn't matter.

Now find the ellipse tool in the control panel. If you can’t find it right away, try holding down the mouse button on the menu buttons on the left for a few seconds. Perhaps the ellipse is hidden under the rectangle.

Now let's draw a circle.

To make the circle even, hold down the shift button on the keyboard. It helps maintain proportions.

Once you're done, an additional control panel will pop out. It duplicates the one at the top of the screen. You can work in whichever one you like best, it doesn’t matter.

If you need to draw a figure of the required diameter, change these values ​​to the necessary parameters. Let it be 500. Look, if for some unknown reason only one indicator changes, do not forget to change the second one, otherwise you will draw an ellipse.

You can use a gradient, a pattern, or choose one color. Open additional panels to expand your capabilities.

Here you can also use different techniques: gradient, pattern, one color or without a stroke.

If you want to change the line itself, look at the next column.

By the way, I completely forgot to say, if you use a gradient for filling, then try a radial effect so that the color comes from the center.

Another interesting effect

You can draw a circle directly on the picture or move it to the photo using the ctrl+c (copy) and ctrl+v (paste) buttons.

Now work with the opacity (in the left panel). Make sure that the layer you are working with is highlighted in the panel. IN in this case– ellipse.

You can write some text in the circle.

If difficulties arise, you can download the psd layout of this picture, which you see in the screenshot above, and dig deeper into it. It's more interesting to learn this way. Understand my example yourself. It's not difficult at all. ( DOWNLOAD >> )

There are layers: a photo of the savannah (background), a circle with a gradient (ellipse 1) and text. If you download this file, you can and should open it when photoshop help, and then have fun as you want.

Or here is another picture that you can download ( DOWNLOAD >> ).

To create it, in addition to those moments that you already know, on each layer I right-clicked and changed the blending parameters.

Download this layout and see for yourself, maybe you can improve the result significantly! Don't be shy and leave your options in the comments.

For those who want to comprehend

If you like my lessons, then I advise you to subscribe to my blog’s mailing list and receive information about the latest interesting publications directly to your email. It's really convenient.

However, you must admit that in order to learn and become a professional you will have to wait a lot. After all, in addition to Photoshop, I talk about WordPress, how to sell and create websites, about plugins and negotiating with customers.

If you want to learn Photoshop in order to create websites, I can recommend two more options. The first one is lessons from here - “ WEB DESIGN for beginners" I have already written about them in detail. In principle, if you want, you can learn a lot for free, in three days, which are provided as a test period. Very useful and great.

However, this is cool if you study for yourself. If you are interested in making big money, then pay attention to Netology, namely this course - “ Web designer: effective website from idea to implementation »:

Yes, the price, of course, bites.

But what program and what teachers are waiting for you?

Here you have the director of Red Keds, and the creator of interfaces from Kaspersky Lab, and a bunch of other eminent and successful guys from world-famous companies. Upon completion you receive a diploma. This one is really worth a lot.

OK it's all over Now. Now you know the maximum and I can take my leave with peace of mind.

Good luck in job!

Drawing circles of various diameters is far from the most necessary skill in life. However, sooner or later the need to draw a circle without a compass and other round-shaped auxiliary objects takes everyone by surprise. Therefore, it is better to find out in advance without a compass, regardless of its diameter.

How to draw an even circle without using a compass

You can be a schoolchild who came to a geometry lesson, forgetting his drawing tools, a student, an adult forced to draw a perfectly straight circle - different situations happen.

It will be useful for every person to know how to draw smooth circle without compass. We offer you several ways to solve this problem.

A compass can easily be replaced by another tool found in every student’s pencil case, namely a protractor. Place it on paper, marking center point on the straight part, this will be the center of the future circle. Circle inner part semicircle, then rotate the ruler about ninety degrees and draw a third of the circle. Rotate the protractor one more time and complete the circle.

If you're in a meeting or at work and don't have the tool you need on hand, just use the CD. Trace it from the outside or from the inside to get a smaller shape.

In an office setting, you can also use a glass. To do this, take a glass of water, take a sip and place it on a sheet of paper, lightly circle the bottom. Drink some more and set it aside.

All of the above items can be found in any office; the protractor will also be available to students. With their help you can draw a circle evenly without a compass.

Draw circles of different sizes without auxiliary objects

What to do if you need to draw circles of different diameters?

It is not at all difficult to cope with this problem, having only paper and a simple pencil on hand.

Take a pencil in one hand and place the other on a piece of paper. Place the little finger of your first hand on the sheet so that it is the center of the future circle. Hold this position well. With your other hand, start turning the paper around your little finger. You will see how a smooth circle is obtained, just like when using a compass.

Circle bigger size is drawn in the same way, but in this case bend your little finger, as if you clenched all your fingers into a fist. With your left hand, start turning the sheet until you see the resulting circle. It is advisable to use a pencil with a soft lead.

A circle with an even larger diameter can be drawn by repeating all the above tips, but now the right hand should touch the sheet with the protruding bone on the wrist.

These are the simplest methods on how to draw a circle without a compass. The most important thing in these methods is to learn to hold right hand motionless (left if you are left-handed).

How to Draw a Perfect Circle Using a Ruler

If you have a regular ruler on hand, then you can use another tip on how to draw a circle without a compass. Take a ruler and place it on the paper, the "0" mark will be the center of the circle, so place it in the right place. Draw the second point near the digital value corresponding to the radius of the circle. Move the second edge of the ruler slightly so that the middle remains at zero, and the third point is located slightly above the second.

Do this procedure several times. As a result, you should have a circle drawn. The more often the dotted lines, the easier it will be to connect everything into a solid line.

This is perhaps the easiest, but at the same time the longest way to draw a circle without a compass.

An arbitrary circle or an even circle in Photoshop is drawn according to the same rules as respectively. By and large, you need to use the same groups of tools, but adjusted for the shape of the figure.

Method 1: Ellipse Tool

Using this tool you can draw a circle or circle shape.

Let's start with the vector, that is, from a figure whose dimensions can be changed without loss of quality. To do this, select Ellipse tool, and in the options bar set the setting Shape layer.

Now draw a circle or circle. But first, choose a primary color other than white, otherwise you won’t see what you ended up drawing.

How to draw an even circle

By default, the circle is drawn free-form, that is, you draw nothing more than an oval with arbitrary dimensions. To draw an even circle, select one of the options:

  1. hold down the Shift key;
  2. On the tool options bar, select the option:

Once again, pay attention to this window with tool parameters. Here you can configure the ability to draw a figure according to specified sizes or proportions. Specify the desired dimensions/proportions in the width and height fields, and then simply click anywhere in the document - Photoshop will immediately display a circle with the specified values.

So, a vector circle or circle has appeared. This will be a solid colored shape layer.

Now, to be able to resize without losing quality, use the Ctrl+T command. When you no longer need a vector shape, you can use it to continue working on the shape using all the capabilities of Photoshop.

Raster shape this is done in exactly the same way, but at the very beginning you need to select another option in the options bar - Fill pixels.

After this, the circle will be created immediately as a raster one. Don't forget for her.

Method 2. Stroke the selected area - ring

Let's turn to another Photoshop tool - Oval area. The action plan is as follows: create a round selected area, and then outline its borders. As a result, we get a ring.

Draw a free-form circle or an even circle (holding the Shift key). You can also specify specified sizes or proportions for the selection in the tool options bar. To do this, from the drop-down list Style select the appropriate option. After this, the width and height fields will become active and you can enter the required numbers there.

Let's say we get a selected area like this:

Now you need to outline its borders. To do this, select the command: Editing - Stroke.

A new window will appear in which you specify the width of the stroke border and its color. There is also interesting settings about how the stroke width will be calculated:

  • Inside- this means the frame will lie on inside selected area;
  • Centered- this means the frame will be divided equally into the part that runs inside the selection and the part on the outside;
  • Outside- this means the frame will go around the dotted line of the selection.

Keep in mind. that the chosen option will affect the final dimensions of the circle (its width and height).

Now that the settings are entered, click OK. All that remains is to remove the dotted selection line - Ctrl+D.

If you notice an error in the text, select it and press Ctrl + Enter. Thank you!


The question is important not only for beginners, but sometimes also for experienced artists. Understanding how to draw a circle correctly in perspective, we can draw a huge number of objects, not just pots and plates.
All in all short summary: Usually we rarely see round objects from the front. For example a plate like this

We see much less often than this.

Therefore, we need to understand how to correctly depict a plate in a perspective horizontal plane. There is a simple diagram for this.


The most important thing is on the left. We see ovals and the horizon line, relative to which we usually draw all objects. At the level of the horizon line, the oval either turns into a line or becomes very narrow. The higher or lower, the rounder the oval becomes, all the lines that are closer to us according to the law of perspective will be thicker, everything further away will be thinner. If the oval is much lower than the level of vision, it can become almost round. This can be seen very clearly by taking a roll of tape, your ideal medium for practicing this skill. We raise the skein to eye level - ideally we will see a rectangle, raise it higher and lower and immediately see clearly all the changes.
In the vertical plane, the story is absolutely the same, only the diagram must be turned 90 degrees.

Thus, all plates and pots become subject to us, we look at the previous picture of the plate, taking into account new knowledge.

You can draw another oval to show the thickness of the plate, final result depends on your powers of observation. The skill of drawing ovals trains very well in detailed drawing simple objects, the same roll of tape, for example, works great at first.

There is another common mistake when drawing ovals. Many people draw two arcs instead of an oval. This should not be allowed, even if your oval is very narrow; we always draw roundings in the corners.

Over time, you will become great at finding perspective in almost any object.

Well, after you get tired of circles, you can try drawing squares - the principle is the same. There is indeed a nuance with the vanishing point, but more on that another time.

I hope you no longer have problems with the circle in perspective and your drawings will be correct and accurate. In addition to this post, you can also see

How to construct a circle?

A circle is an ideal line that cannot always be drawn exactly. There is a special device for this - a compass. It allows you to avoid mistakes and construct a circle perfectly and accurately. However, a compass is not always at hand.

Let's take a closer look at how to construct a circle using and without a compass.

How to construct a circle with a compass


But you don’t always have a compass with you. How can you draw a circle using available tools? Let's give some examples.

How to construct a circle without a compass

Perhaps the simplest and at the same time requiring additional costs method is to trace something round, be it a saucer, a watch, a coin or something else. But round objects may also not be nearby.

Then you can try the second option, which everyone can probably do. First you need to draw a square, and only then draw a circle from it by truncating the corners. Well, the third option, which can be used both on a blackboard with chalk and in a notebook with a pencil, is using thread. You can make an imitation of a compass and tie a thread to a pencil, also measure the required diameter and, attaching the thread to a sheet, draw a circle, as in the case of a compass.

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