How to Make Soft Rounded Edges in Photoshop

Using Photoshop to edit your photos allows you to add any number of different effects to your pictures, from adding fonts and type to your photos, to blurring the lines of separation between multiple photos and creating blended photo collages.

When you import a photo into Photoshop, it’s converted into a PSD, or Photoshop document. From this point you can use the program to soften the edges of the photo, making the border of the photo seem to fade from the border color into the picture. Learning how to make soft rounded edges in Photoshop is actually pretty simple - just follow these steps:

1. Open your tools menu and choose one of the marquee tools. The tools menu is usually already visible when you open the program - if not, go to your "edit" menu and select "menus" and then use the pulldowns to select "palette" menus.
2. Once you have the toolbar visible, just select the right tool. To create a rounded edge to be applied to your photo, choose the elliptical marquee option.  In most Photoshop tool menus, this is in the top left corner.
3. Once the elliptical marque option is chosen, you'll see that your cursor now looks like a cross.
4. Move your cursor (in the shape of a cross) over the photo. 
5. Once you have the cursor over your photo, choose a starting point on your photo, then click and hold the left button on your mouse.
6. As you drag your cursor over the photo, your marquee tool will expand, widening the view you’ll have once the tool has been applied.
7. When you’ve got the part of the photo you’d like to be inside the softened edges, let go of the mouse button and you’ll see a ring around the object in the photo you’re adding the edge to.  
8. Open the "Select" menu, and then again on the “Feather” option.
9. Under the "Feather" option, you’ll have the option of choosing the width of the softened edge. The higher the number of pixels you select, the softer the edge will be, and the wider the fade you’ll create.
10. Once you apply the feather, right click the selection you’ve made and copy it.
11. Then, open a new document in Photoshop and paste your selection into the new document by clicking “Edit” and then “Paste.”
12. You should see the rounded and softened edges when you paste the image to the new document.
13. Before you exit the program, or even open a new screen, be sure and save your revised image with a new file name so that you can easily find the new image and you don’t have to start over if you accidentally close the file.

Follow these step-by-step instructions to make soft rounded edges around your Photoshop images.