is it possible to crop a circle or oval in Aperture?

Lilian,

Aperture only crops rectangular selections, sorry - it does not support alpha channels, that would be required for transparency and arbitrary shapes.

Try the free GIMP - it can do similar things to Photoshop.

If you have the iWorks apps - Pages, Keynote, you can use the masks to crop your photos to arbitrary shapes.

iBook Author is also free and lets you add masks to images (add a shape and use image fill).

Regards

Léonie

You could also give Pixelmator a try - it is inexpensive and easy to use, and you can download a trial version here: http://www.pixelmator.com/try/

In a pinch -- that is, not as a repeated workflow -- you can use BorderFX to make simple ovals (and circles):

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3373511?answerId=16331537022#16331537022

BorderFX again to the rescue! 😁 I forgot that it can do that as well - is there anything it cannot do? 😉

You can download gimp here: http://www.gimp.org/downloads/

and user manuals and tutorials from the Documentation page: http://www.gimp.org/docs/

This was asked not to long ago and the one installed app we aways forget about Preview came to the rescue!

Preview can do a ton of things that you never think about, thisis one of those.

regards

Message was edited by: Frank Caggiano - If you try out GIMP make sure you get the latest version for OS X. It now runs native. Previous versions ogof GIMP for Mac required X11

This was asked not to long ago and the one installed app we aways forget aboutPreview came to the rescue!

LOL, Frank! Preview was the first application I checked, believe it or not! 😁

But I let myself be tricked,😝 because the "Tools" drop-down menu only shows "Rectangular selection". You really have to setup the toolbar icons "View > Show Edit Toolbar" to discover the "Circular selection" icon. Preview hides its secrets very well!

You are welcome!

Without Frank's hint I would not have looked again at Preview!

I am only wondering how it will effect the quality of my picture.

That will depend on the quality you use to export from Aperture to Preview, and also on the quality you use to save from Preview. Export at the best quality you need for the purpose you want the photo for.

The basic idea is to use the "elliptical selection" from the "Edit Toolbar", then drag the mouse across the rectangular area that contains your ellipse/circle and then copy the selected area to the clipboard. Now create a new image (File > New from Clipboard) and this will create a new photo with transparent background. Then save this image in a format that supports transparency - tiff or png.

As you know, Frank is way ahead on this one. No need to mess around with BorderFX to _crop_. (If you want a border, though ... .)

Hi Léonie, despite reading the manual and trying I am only getting a square result when I crop image after the selection with an oval/round selection...

I use: tools, round selection and select the part on the image. Than I use crop till selection on image.