Rounded Corners Tutorial
This is a beginning photoshop tutorial about how to round off 90 degree corners and angles from your shapes.
This technique is very handy and one I use quite often. It consists of the gaussian blur filter applied to a channel, and then using the levels dialog to get rid of the blur, and you're left with nice rounded off corners instead of the hard angles.
- Start by creating a new document (ctrl + n). Make the document size 700 x 250 pixels with a white background, a resolution of 72 pixels/inch, and RGB Color Mode.
- Grab the Polygonal Lasso Tool and make a shpae similar to this one, and fill it with any color you choose:
- Keep that selection you just created active, and go create a new channel.
- Fill the selection with white.
- Deselect, and gaussian blur (Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur) this channel by about 7. The larger the gaussian blur, the more "rounder" your corners will become. Play around with this setting when you're done with the tutorial to see what I mean.
- Now, the magic is with the Levels dialog. Open it by going to Image -> Adjustments -> Levels, or hit ctrl + L.
- Notice the three sliders at the bottom? Drag them all towards the center and watch the blur go away!
- You can also use the input levels text fields at the top, to have a more precise placement of your sliders. Mine were: 127, 1.00, and 142.
The key is to get a nice, anti-aliased edge going all the way around your shape. Try squeezing all three sliders, next to each other, really tightly. You'll see that there is an ugly aliased edge around your shape, which is exactly what you don't want.
- Now, load this channel's selection by ctrl + clicking on it's thumbnail in the channels palette, and go back to your layers palette.
- Make a new layer, and fill in this selection with any color you want.
You are no ready to use this as a base to make a brand new interface with. Like I said, I use this simple technique very often, and it's one you should add to your skills.
Thanks for completing the tutorial, and please go to the forums to give feedback or get help! See you there. Also, please take a look at the other photoshop tutorials to expand your skills.
Sincerely,
