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This article is from March 5, 2014, and is no longer current.

Working with Rounded Corners in Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign

If you want to be truly “well rounded” with your Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign skills, you need to know how to work with rounded corners in all three programs. So let’s take a look the various methods for creating and editing rounded corners in each application.

Rounded Corners in Photoshop

To create a new rounded rectangle in Photoshop CC, select the Rounded Rectangle Tool (located under the Rectangle Tool), and use the settings in the Options bar to chose a fill, stroke, and corner radius. Then click and drag in the document to set the position, width, and height.

Alternatively, you can just click in the document with the Rounded Rectangle Tool and enter values for width, height, and corner radius in the dialog box. Also note that you can set different radius values for each corner in the dialog box.

To adjust rounded corners after an object has been created, use the Properties panel. Note that the following techniques work for paths and shapes drawn with both the Rectangle Tool and the Rounded Rectangle Tool. And you can select multiple objects to edit their corners simultaneously.

Click on the Live Shape Properties button and enter new radius values in the panel fields. Select the chain icon to make all corner radii the same. Or deselect it and enter different values in the fields.

You can also click and drag on each corner icon in the panel to adjust the values.

If you click the chain to constrain the corner radii after setting mixed corner values, the amount you add or subtract will be applied to all corners.

To apply a new corner radius to all corners at once, enter a value in the All Corner Radius field.

There are also purely pixel-based techniques that you can employ to create rounded effects. For example, you can start with a rectangle and apply Gaussian Blur, followed by a Levels adjustment.

Rounded Corners in Illustrator

The Rounded Rectangle Tool

To create a new rounded corner rectangle, select the Rounded Rectangle Tool (located under the Rectangle Tool), and either click and drag or click and use the dialog box to set the size and corner radius values.

The Corner Radius value you enter in the dialog box becomes the default for new rounded rectangles. You can also edit the default corner radius in Illustrator’s General preferences.

To change the corner radius while you’re dragging a new rounded rectangle, press the up or down arrow keys. Pressing the left arrow key sets the corner radius to zero. Pressing the right arrow key sets the maximum radius.

Note that you cannot change the corner radius of a rounded rectangle after you draw it.

Rounded Effects

You can convert objects to rounded corner rectangles by choosing Effect > Convert to Shape > Rounded Rectangle, and entering the values you want in the Shape Options dialog box.

Afterward, you can edit the effect in the Appearance panel.

You can also apply rounded corners to a selected object by choosing Effect > Stylize > Round Corners. To edit the effect, again use the controls in the Appearance panel.

Illustrator Live Corners

In Illustrator CC, you can apply editable Live Corners to objects by selecting them with the Direct Selection Tool, and then dragging any of the Live Corner icons.

As you drag, you can see the radius value at your cursor.

To edit Live Corners, drag with the Direct Selection Tool, or use the Control Panel options to set a different radius, shape, or rounding method.

With the Relative Rounding option, the corner radius varies with the corner angle.

With the Absolute Rounding option, the radius stays constant regardless of the corner angle.

For even more options for working with rounded corners in Illustrator, check out Astute Graphics VectorScribe, which includes Dynamic Corners.

Rounded Corners in InDesign

To create rounded corners in InDesign, select an object and use the Control panel settings to choose t
he Rounded corner shape and a radius.

The Corner Options Dialog Box

Option/Alt-click on the Corner Options icon to the left of the radius field to open a dialog box where you can set the size and shape for each corner separately.

You can also choose Object > Corner Options to open that same dialog box.

InDesign Live Corners

InDesign also has a Live Corners feature you can use to click and drag directly on an object to add or edit rounded corners.

To access the Live Corners feature, click the small yellow square on an object. By default it appears at the top right, but it can appear elsewhere if an object has been rotated or flipped.

In Live Corners mode, yellow diamond shapes appear at the corners of an object, and you can drag any one of them to set the radii of all the corners.

As you drag, the current radius value appears at your cursor.

Also in Live Corners mode, you can Option/Alt-click on one of the diamonds to switch to a different corner shape.

Or hold Shift as you drag on a diamond to change an individual corner radius.

Editor in Chief of CreativePro. Instructor at LinkedIn Learning with courses on InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, GIMP, Inkscape, and Affinity Publisher.
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