Create photorealistic images of your products in any environment without expensive photo shoots! (Get started for free)

How do you reshape a rectangular layer into a perfect circle in a design or graphics editing software?

The Elliptical Marquee tool in Photoshop uses the elliptical algorithm to create a perfect circle, which is a mathematical equation that generates an ellipse by rotating a circle around its center.

Holding the shift key while dragging the Elliptical Marquee tool ensures a perfect circle is drawn, as it constrains the aspect ratio to 1:1, making the ellipse a circle.

In graphics editing software, a layer is essentially a 2D matrix of pixels, and reshaping it into a circle involves reorganizing these pixels to form a circular shape.

When applying a layer mask to crop an image into a circle, the software is essentially creating a binary mask – a layer with only 0s and 1s – to determine which pixels to keep or discard.

The concept of layer masking is based on the mathematical concept of Boolean algebra, which uses logical operations (AND, OR, NOT) to manipulate binary data.

Canva's circular frame is essentially a vector shape, which is a mathematical object defined by a set of geometric primitives, such as points, lines, and curves.

When you upload an image to Canva and drag it into the circular frame, the software is performing an Affine transformation, which is a geometric transformation that preserves straight lines and ratios of distances.

The concept of Affine transformation is based on linear algebra, which is a branch of mathematics that deals with vectors and matrices.

In Canva, the circular frame is a type of clipping path, which is a vector shape that defines the boundaries of an object or image.

Clipping paths are used in computer graphics to achieve masking, which is a fundamental concept in graphics editing, where a mask determines which parts of an image are visible or hidden.

The mathematical concept of Bezier curves, which are used to create smooth curves and shapes in graphics editing software, was first introduced by French engineer Pierre Bézier in the 1960s.

The algorithms used in graphics editing software to reshape layers into circles are based on computational geometry, which is a field of mathematics that deals with the study of algorithms for solving geometric problems.

Create photorealistic images of your products in any environment without expensive photo shoots! (Get started for free)

Related

Sources