Working with Selections

Prepare image

• Download the photo by right-clickfing on it and click
• This photo was taken looking upward with a wide angle lens.
• Save picture as on the popup menu to save the image in your folder.

• Apartment building (building.jpg)
• Save the image as a PSD (Photoshop) file with a new name.

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Try it

Straighten out the building

• Select the Crop tool on the toolbar
• Select approximately that part of the image that you want to include in the final image
• Click the Perspective Checkbox on the Crop Options Bar
• Drag the side handles to straighten out the sides of the image to align with the building
• Double-Click the image to complete the transformation.
• Do Filter>Unsharp Mask to sharpen up the edges of the image
• Save the image

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selections on a duplicate layer

• First create a duplicate layer of the background by clicking Layer>Duplicate layer on the menu bar, and clicking OK in the Duplicate Layer dialog box that opens up.

Select new layer in layers palette.

• Visible palettes have a little eye to the left of them
• The selected palette on which you are working is blue

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ways to create a selection

Magic Wand - for areas that are contiguous, similar in color and value

• Select the magic wand on the toolbar
• Check the Contiguous Check box on the tool options bar
• Click the Add to Selection (second) button on the tool options bar
• Select part of the image, such as the sky with the magic wand
• To add to the selection, click any unselected parts of the image with the magic wand to add to the selection
• The selection is surrounded by the "marching ants".
• Save the selection so you can use it later by clicking Select>Save Selection on the menu bar.
• Name the selection with a descriptive name: sky
• If you click on the Channels palette next to the layers palette you can see your saved selection at the bottom of the Color channels
• Do Layer>new layer via copy to create a new layer holding just the selected part of the image. You can find this command on the menu bar or by right clicking on the selected layer. 

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Paint a layer mask

Useful for objects with straight edges

Paint around one of the wall segments of the building, leaving the windows out of the selection

• Click on the background copy layer to select it
• Turn off the visibility of the layer with the sky in it.
  
• Click the QuickMask button at the bottom of the toolbar (the button to the right just below the foreground/background color tool
• Select the Brush tool on the toolbar
• Select a hard brush about 15 pixels in diameter
• Click somewhere on the edge of the area you want to select
• Hold down the shift key and click the point along the line where it changes direction
• Continue drawing around the image until you complete the drawing.
• Lift the cursor and click somewhere else to draw a new line of mask.
• Click again at a point on the edge between the windows, and extend the mask to the other edge of the original selection.
• Continue until the wall, but not the windows are all selected

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Click the Exit Quick Mask button to the left of the QuickMask button on the tool bar

• This creates a selection of everything that was not painted with the quickmask brush
• Click Select>Inverse to revert the selection to include the building you painted
• Click Select>Save Selection to save the selection in the Color Channel as building
• Right click the layer in which you have been working and click Layer via Copy to create a layer with only the selected image.

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Change selected sky

• Select the layer with the sky in it
• Create a duplicate layer so you can try a second effect
• You can reload the selection in a couple of ways
• Click Select>Load Selection and choose the selection sky in the selection dropdown box
• Open the channels panel and click the eye next to the sky mask
• Apply the Clouds filter to your sky
• First select two contrasting colors/values for your clouds in the Set Foreground and Set background color wells on the toolbar
• Click Filter>Render>Clouds
• Repeat for the second sky layer
• try Filter>Render>Difference Clouds
• Try other effects such as Color/Tonal adjustments on the Image>Adjustments popup menu
• Try adjusting the opacity of the sky layers

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Change selected building:

• Select the layer with the building in it
• Create a duplicate layer so you can try a second effect
• You can reload the selection in a couple of ways
• Click Select>Load Selection and choose the selection building in the selection dropdown box
• Open the channels panel and click the eye next to the building mask
• Try color/tonal adjustments to change it in different ways.
• Combine all your layers, with varying levels of opacity/transparency

Be sure to take notes about what you do, and save intermediate versions of your files! 
Go for it! 

 

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