MAKING SELECTIONS

Much of the time, before you can do anything to an image (or a portion of an image) in Photoshop, you must first make a selection. The tool you use depends on the type of selection you want to make.

MARQUEE TOOLS

The most basic of all the selection tools is the MARQUEE TOOL. The MARQUEE TOOL is located at the top left corner of the toolbox. You can access it by clicking on its icon or by hitting the M key. When you click on the little triangle at the bottom right corner of the MARQUEE TOOL, notice that more tools emerge, including the ELLIPTICAL MARQUEE TOOL, which is used to create circular or oval selections:

To make a selection with the MARQUEE TOOL, just drag across the portion of the image you want to select while holding down the mouse button. Once you release the mouse, your selection will be surrounded by flickering dashed lines (also referred to as “marching ants”).

When the MARQUEE TOOL is selected in the toolbox, additional settings are available in the MARQUEE TOOL OPTIONS BAR. Here, you can specify a FEATHER value (which softens the edges of your selection), but you must enter the value before you make your selection. For the ELLIPTICAL MARQUEE tool only, you have the option of checking the ANTI-ALIASED setting, which works much like feathering. Four tool icons on the left side of the MARQUEE TOOL OPTIONS BAR let you add or subtract from a selection:

  • To create a selection that is perfectly square or round, hold down the SHIFT key as you drag around the area you want to select.
  • To create a selection that extends outward from its center, hold down the OPTION key (Mac) or the ALT key (Windows) as you drag.

LASSO TOOLS

The LASSO TOOL is used for making freehand selections. To access it, click on the LASSO TOOL icon in the toolbox or hit the L key. To access the POLYGON LASSO TOOL and the MAGNETIC LASSO TOOL, click on the triangle at the bottom right corner of the LASSO TOOL icon in the toolbox:

With the LASSO TOOL selected, you can trace around the portion of the image you want to select to create a freehand selection border. By holding down the OPTION key (Mac) or ALT key (Windows), you can click around the area you want to select, rather than drag, giving you more control.

The POLYGON LASSO is used to draw straight-edge selections. Click once where you want the selection to begin. Move your cursor to the next selection point and click again Continue in this fashion until you have enclosed the portion of the image you want to select within the selection border. Anti-aliasing and feathering options are available in the OPTIONS BAR for both the regular LASSO and POLYGONAL LASSO tools.

The MAGNETIC LASSO TOOL works much like the regular LASSO TOOL except that as you trace around the portion of the image you want to select, the MAGNETIC LASSO TOOL creates a selection border than snaps to the edge of a defined area of your image.

To use the MAGNETIC LASSO, click once on the portion of your image that you want to select to set a starting point, and then trace around the portion of the image that you want to select. Notice that after the initial click, you don’t have to hold down the mouse button. As you trace, the selection border snaps to the edge of your selection, dropping fastening points (those tiny little boxes) along the way. You can add more fastening points by clicking as you trace:

The following settings are available in the MAGNETIC LASSO OPTIONS BAR. Along with specifying a FEATHER and ANTI-ALIASED setting, this is where you set the WIDTH, FREQUENCY and EDGE CONTRAST for making selections with the MAGNETIC LASSO tool:

  • WIDTH: This is the distance, in pixels, from the edge of your selection to the cursor that the MAGNETIC LASSO will be able to detect as you trace around the portion of the image you want to select. Simply put... WIDTH determines how precise you want to be when tracing around your image. The smaller the value you specify, the more precise edge detection will be. Large values are handy for selecting relatively smooth portions of an image that contrast sharply from the background. However, if the portion of the image you want to select has lots of grooves and jags, use a small value. When in doubt, just stick with a value of 1 pixel.
  • EDGE CONTRAST: This is the setting you’ll do the most fiddling with. The MAGNETIC LASSO works by detecting contrast between the edge of the portion of the image you want to select and its background area (which you don’t want to select). Use high EDGE CONTRAST values for edges that contrast sharply with the background and lower EDGE CONTRAST values for poorly contrasted edges.
  • FREQUENCY: This is the rate at which the MAGNETIC LASSO will drop fastening points as you trace around the portion of the image you want to select. In general, use low values for smooth edges and high values for edges with lots of nooks and crannies.

MAGIC WAND TOOL

The MAGIC WAND TOOL works a little differently from the other selection tools. Use it to select portions of an image that are of the same color range. You can access the MAGIC WAND TOOL by clicking on its icon in the toolbox or by hitting the W key:

The following settings are available in the MAGIC WAND OPTIONS BAR:

This is where you set a TOLERANCE for your selection—any value between 0 and 255. With a high TOLERANCE setting, more gradations of color within that particular color range will be selected, and as such, a larger area of the image.

For example, say I want to select the middle stripe on this image of a fish so I can change its color. With the MAGIC WAND tool selected and a TOLERANCE of 70 set in the MAGIC WAND OPTIONS BAR, I click once on the stripe to select it:

If you want to select more than one portion of an image (perhaps another stripe), just hold down the SHIFT key as you click with the MAGIC WAND tool on the next portion of the image you want to select.

COLOR RANGE

Another handy way of making selections based on color is the COLOR RANGE COMMAND. Under the SELECT MENU, choose COLOR RANGE and the following dialog box will appear:

Under the SELECT drop-down menu, you can choose a color range by SAMPLED COLORS, HIGHLIGHTS, MIDTONES, etc. With SAMPLED COLORS, use the eyedropper to click on the representation of the image in the dialog box to select a color range. The FUZZINESS BAR works much like the TOLERANCE setting of the MAGIC WAND TOOL—the higher the value, the more gradations of color within that particular color range will be selected.

ALTERING SELECTIONS

When making selections, the following commands also come in handy. They are located under the SELECT MENU, but it is always easier to use the keyboard shortcuts:

SELECT ALL—Selects the entire image
Under the SELECT MENU, choose ALL
Shortcut: COMMAND A (Mac); CONTROL A (Windows)

DESELECT—Deselects what you have selected
Under the SELECT MENU, choose DESELECT
Shortcut: COMMAND D (Mac); CONTROL D (Windows)

RESELECT—Reselects what you have just deselected
Under the SELECT MENU, choose RESELECT
Shortcut: COMMAND SHIFT D (Mac)
CONTROL SHIFT D (Windows)

INVERSE—Inverses your selection
Under the SELECT MENU, choose INVERSE
Shortcut: COMMAND SHIFT I (Mac)
CONTROL SHIFT I (Windows)

HIDE EDGES—Hides the dashed selection boundary
Shortcut: COMMAND H (Mac); CONTROL H (Windows)

To ADD TO A SELECTION you’ve just made with the MARQUEE, LASSO or MAGIC WAND tool, just hold down the SHIFT key and make another selection.

To SUBTRACT FROM A SELECTION, hold down the OPTION key (Mac) or ALT key (Windows), and select the portion of the selection you want to deselect.

You can EXPAND and CONTRACT a selection under the SELECT MENU—choose MODIFY.

Also under the SELECT MENU, the GROW and SIMILAR commands allow you to add to an existing selection. GROW works in conjunction with the TOLERANCE setting of the MAGIC WAND tool. For instance, if you select a portion of an image using the MAGIC WAND tool with a TOLERANCE of 40 set in the MAGIC WAND OPTIONS BAR, you can easily increase the selection area by choosing GROW from the SELECT MENU. Basically, you are doubling your TOLERANCE without returning to the MAGIC WAND OPTIONS BAR. When you choose SIMILAR from the SELECT MENU, all other portions of the image that share the same color range will be selected.

For a PDF of this tutorial, click here.