PSE/PS Tip - Turning Things into Circles

Here's a quick tip/super-mini tutorial for taking something straight and making it into a circle. This works on ribbons and stitching really well. This will work in PSE 3.0/4.0/5.0 and PS7 & above to my knowledge.

• Open your long ribbon
• Change the canvas size (not the document size) so that it is square - in other words, make the height match the width
• Make the ribbon twice as tall (CTRL+T and change the H to 200%) - failure to do this step will result in an item that is half as thick as your original after you turn it into a circle
  
• Run the polar coordinates filter on it - filter->distort->polar coordinates; select "rectangle to polar" and hit OK

Warning: this takes a bit of RAM so you may not be able to handle large files if you don't have enough memory.

You can ALSO do this to make text in a circle. It's the same as above except:

• Make sure the text goes all the way across your canvas
• Rasterize the text after typing it in
• Rotate it 180 degrees when you change the height.

When you do this, note that your final circle will be about half the size of your straight item.

Give it a whirl!