Question about Photoshop

Can anyone tell me how to save a picture in its own shape without any filling background? I have a round image but it only seems to save it as a square, but I want to keep it round.

you mean you want it with a transparent background to save it as a .gif image?

I'm not sure what you're saying here...I have an idea, but I'm not sure.

You can't save anything with a round frame (sort of like the like the little grey frame that goes around programs that run in windows). Frames are always and only square.

Adrian

Does it have to be saved as a .gif? I mean something like my current sigpic for instance. It's definitely not square, has no background and is a .jpg image.

Sorry, I really don't know how to explain what I want to do

your sigpig definitely is a square though and a .gif as well, not a .jpg it has an image surrounded by transparent pixels, which you obviously don't see, but it is a square. Any image you'll find on the web will be a square.

If you want to save an image with a visible circle and the pixels outside the circle, that fill up the square, transparent; you'll have to make a .gif or a .png file (but keep in mind that Internet Explorer doesn't fully support .png files ).

If you use Photoshop and have a file you want to save with transparent pixels, make sure that you have at least one layer on top of the background layer. Make the background layer unvisible (uncheck the 'eye' in the layers window) and you'll see the grey/while checkers pattern, which are in fact the transparent pixels. On top of the background layer, make another layer with the part of the picture you want to see (ie. select it and copy / paste it from the file you want).

THen you should see your image surrounded by the grey/white checkers board pattern. Go to file>save for web; select GIF on the right and make sure transperency is checked. This should save your image with the transparent pixels and makes it looks like it's not a square image on the web.

I'm not sure if this explains it to you... kinda depends how much you use Photoshop as well...

Sara, thanks so much for the explanation! It seems to be working now. Just one more question though. How can I reduce the border so the square is more adjusted to the circle? I go to image > image size but it changes the size of the whole thing

I've been battling with Photoshop for a few months now. Not doing anything outstanding, but I learn a few new things from time to time that come in very handy.

Oh, and shame on me for not knowing my sigpic was actually a gif as well

Thanks a lot again!

Oops, I just remembered I do know how to do that adjusting thing

I'm a bit thick tonight :P

To reduce the border, select the part of the image that you want to save, and go to image>crop image; that'll remove the part of the image outside the selection (ie. the border you want to reduce).

hehe too late :P my answer has been posted :P

Gee! That's great! I was doing that *manually*

Thanks!