How to Draw a Perfect Circle in Photoshop

How to Draw a Perfect Circle in Photoshop

Photoshop has no circle tool, which is why drawing a perfect circle trips people up. There are two routes: the Elliptical Marquee Tool, which makes a circular selection you then fill, and the Ellipse Tool, which creates a live shape layer you can restyle at any time. Holding Shift is what turns either one from an oval into a true circle.

Filling a Marquee Circle with the Gradient Tool

The Gradient Tool blends several colors together in one sequence, which is an easy way to give a plain circle some character.

Find the Gradient Tool in the Tool Bar on the left side of the workspace, where it’s the square showing a black-to-white blend. Select it, or press G.

Setting Up the Gradient

The options at the top of the workspace control the tool. The black-to-white box is the Gradient Picker; click the arrow beside it to see the available gradients and choose the rainbow one, called Spectrum.

Next to the picker are the Gradient Style options. Hovering over each square shows how that style lays the colors out. Choose the first, Linear, which runs the gradient in one straight sequence. Set Mode to Normal so the colors fill without alteration, and Opacity to 100% for a solid fill.

Dragging the Gradient Across the Circle

With the cursor on the left side of the circle, click and drag all the way across it. A line appears as you drag, showing the direction the gradient will run.

Release on the right side and the rainbow fills the circle in the same order shown in the Gradient Picker. Dragging in other directions runs the gradient along a different axis, so it’s worth trying a few.

To clear the selection, go to Select at the top of the workspace and choose Deselect.

The marching outline disappears.

Drawing a Circle with the Ellipse Tool

The Ellipse Tool draws a shape rather than a selection, which means the fill and the outline stay editable afterwards. An ellipse isn’t round by default, but a shortcut forces it into a perfect circle.

In the Tool Bar, the Ellipse Tool lives inside the Rectangle group, marked by a rectangle symbol and sitting above the Magnify Tool near the bottom. Click and hold the Rectangle Tool and a side menu opens, where the Ellipse Tool is second in the list.

Options Before You Draw

At the top left, set Tool Mode to Shape, which tells Photoshop you’re creating a shape. Fill controls the interior, offering a solid color, gradient or pattern, and for now set it to none, the white box with a red line through it. Stroke controls the outline the same way; set that to none as well, with a width of 0 pt. The Ellipse options also allow a dotted outline instead of a solid one.

The Shift Key Is the Whole Trick

Position the cursor near the upper left, hold Shift, and drag to the bottom right. Holding Shift constrains the shape to a perfect circle; without it you get an oval.

A new layer called Ellipse 1 appears in the Layers panel on the right. Because the circle has its own layer, it can be restyled at any point.

Filling and Outlining with a Solid Color

With the Ellipse 1 layer selected and the Ellipse Tool active, open the Fill drop-down at the top of the workspace. Beside No Fill is a solid black square, which means fill with a solid color. Select it, and Photoshop uses the last color you worked with.

To change it, click the multicolored box in the top right of the Fill tab to open the Color Picker. Pick a color from the field or type a color code at the bottom of the window. Choose a light blue and click OK.

The circle fills with that color.

Adding the Outline

Open the Stroke drop-down beside Fill and select the solid black square there too, then use its Color Picker to choose a dark blue and click OK. Type 5 pt as the stroke width, and set Shape Stroke Type, just to the right of the width, to a solid line.

Filling the Shape with a Gradient Instead

With Ellipse 1 selected and the Ellipse Tool active, open Fill again. Next to the solid black square is a gradient square. Select that and Photoshop fills the circle with a gradient, offering presets that can be used as they are or edited into something new.

Reading the Gradient Editor

The Gradient Editor opens on a black-to-white bar where colors, opacity and flow are all adjustable. The arrows above the bar set where opacity starts and stops, opacity being how much of the color shows, so at 50% whatever sits behind the gradient stays partly visible. The arrows below the bar set where each color starts and stops; drag one left or right to give that color more of the blend.

The small circle along the bottom of the bar is the Color Midpoint, the place where the two colors meet, and moving it lets one color dominate the other.

Choosing the Two Colors

Double-click the bottom left arrow to open the Color Picker (Color Stop), choose an orange, and click OK.

The orange fills the left side of the bar and appears in the circle. Drag that Color Stop to the right to give orange more of the blend, then move the Color Midpoint to the right and watch how the circle changes. Double-click the bottom right arrow, choose a blue, and click OK.

Style and Angle

Below the gradient bar, the Linear setting controls the gradient’s style; click it to choose another. The numbered box beside it sets the angle, which Photoshop defaults to 90 degrees. The small dial inside that box shows the same thing visually, so a line pointing to the top of the circle means the gradient runs bottom to top.

More Free Photoshop Tutorials

• How to Add a Gradient in Photoshop
• Create and Use Layer Masks in Photoshop
• The Top 5 Selection Tools in Photoshop

Which Method to Use

The Elliptical Marquee Tool gives you a selection, so whatever you fill it with is committed pixels, which is fine for a one-off gradient wash. The Ellipse Tool gives you a vector shape layer instead, which keeps fill, stroke color and stroke width editable indefinitely and scales without softening. For anything that might need to change later, or be resized, the shape layer is the safer starting point.

Final Thoughts

To draw a perfect circle in Photoshop, select the Ellipse Tool from the Rectangle group in the Tool Bar, set Tool Mode to Shape, then hold Shift while you drag. From there the Fill and Stroke drop-downs handle solid colors, gradients and outline width, and every one of those choices stays editable because the circle lives on its own shape layer.

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• Circle Crop in Photoshop: 3 Easy Steps With the Frame Tool
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