Ever have this happen? You draw a selection with the Rectangular Marquee tool (M) and the corners of your selection are rounded, rather than nice and straight? This happens to a lot of people, especially if they’ve been drinking. If you haven’t been drinking but you’re suffering from rounded-corner selections, look up in the Options Bar, and you’ll see a field for Feather. Chances are there’s some number other than zero in this field, and what’s happening is every time you draw a selection with that tool, it’s automatically feathering (softening) the edge. What probably happened is you intentionally (or accidentally) added a feather amount at some time, then later forgot to set it back to its default of zero. So to fix it, just highlight the field and type 0 (zero). Incidentally, this is a great Photoshop prank to play on co-workers, friends, soon-to-be-enemies, etc., because the Feather field is usually the last place they’ll look.

2 Comments

1. Charles Krause said on — June 14, 2009 @ 8:06 pm

   Just a note to say I learn a lot from this website and think it’s well organized, thorough and one of the best I’ve found. Keep it going please and thanks a lot for all you do.
   Charles Krause

2. Lisa said on — October 6, 2009 @ 2:29 pm

   I am new to PS. Could you specify where to find the filed for Feather? I am experiencing this problem. Thank you.

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