Drawing Rectangles and Ellipses

The Draw Rectangle and Draw Ellipse tools are unique in that they are the only shape tools that work in both raster paint clips and vector paint operators (all other shape tools are vector-paint only). In either mode, the shapes are drawn using the current colors and paint brush settings. They also obey the stroke/fill state that you set in the Paint Tool Settings property editor, or from the Shape menu.

In a vector paint operator, rectangles and ellipses are color shapes, like the shapes that you draw with the Freehand and Mark Out Shape tools. By default, Rectangles are created as closed Polyline shapes, and Ellipses as closed Bézier shapes. Once you draw them, you can edit their properties as you would any other color shape. For more information, see Blurring Color Shape Edges.

To draw a rectangle/ellipse

Edit the paint operator in which you want to draw the rectangle or ellipse, as described in Editing and Previewing Paint Operators.
Choose a brush from the Fx Brush Selector and edit its properties as described in Setting Paint Brush Properties.
Choose foreground and background colors as described in Choosing Colors with the Fx Color Selector.
Do one of the following:
- If you are painting on a vector paint operator, set the new shape type and specify whether the shape is drawn using the stroke (outline), the fill, or both (see Setting the Shape Type).
  
  or
- If you are painting on a raster paint clip, you only need to specify whether the shape will be drawn using the stroke (outline), the fill, or both (see Editing Color Shape Properties).
From the Fx Viewer paint menu, choose Draw Draw Rectangle Tool or Draw Draw Ellipse Tool.

Alternatively, you can position the mouse pointer over the Fx viewer and press Y to activate the Rectangle tool and Shift+Y to activate the ellipse tool.

Drag the mouse pointer diagonally over the region of the image where you wish to draw the rectangle or ellipse.

Hold down Shift to constrain the proportions of the shape to a perfect square or circle.

Hold down Alt to draw the shape from the its center rather than from corner to corner.


By default, rectangles and ellipses are drawn from corner to corner, with whatever width to height ratio you choose.	Holding down Shift while drawing the shape constrains its proportions to form a circle or square rather than an ellipse or rectangle.	Holding down Alt draws the shape from the center outward rather than from corner to corner.	Holding down both Shift and Alt constrains the shape's proportions as it is drawn from the center outward.

If you are painting on a vector paint operator, you can now edit the shape as described in Blurring Color Shape Edges.