Intro to Selections

Different ways to make selections

There are three selection tool groups on the toolbar near the top:

Download stonehenge photo and open the photo in Photoshop.
Open the layers panel if it is not open (F7).
Right-click the background layer, and click Duplicate Layer on the popup menu.
Select the duplicate layer for your selection experiments.
Different selection tools have different options in options bar.
With any of the selection tools, when you have a selection you want to save,
- click Select>Save selection and the selection is added to the channels palette.
- Give it a meaningful name.
- You can then use it again later by clicking Select>Load Selection.

The marquee tools let you select rectangles, ellipses,, and 1‑pixel rows and columns. The selection border is dragged from its corner.

Rectangular Marquee Tool for rectangles, squares (hold down the shift key while selecting)
Elliptical Marquee tool for ellipses, circles (hold down shift key while selecting)
Single Row Marquee tool selects horizontal line of pixels
Single column Marquee tool selects vertical line of pixels

dropdown list of presets for tool if any
perform a single selection each time you click the mouse on the image (old selection disappears)
add to selection adds to current selection
subtract from selection subtracts from current selection
only select where there is an intersection with selection
Feathering Blurs edges by building a transition boundary between the selection and its surrounding pixels. This blurring can cause some loss of detail at the edge of the selection.
Anti-aliasing smoothes jagged edges of a selection by softening the color transition between edge pixels and background pixels. Because only the edge pixels change, no detail is lost. Anti-aliasing helps when cutting, copying, and pasting selections to create composite images.
Style allows you to configure selection
- Normal style determines marquee proportions by dragging.
- Fixed Aspect Ratio Sets a height-to-width aspect ratio.
- Fixed Size Specifies set values for the marquee’s height and width
Refine Edge button -- provides adjustments to selection, including
- quick mask
- enlarging, diminishing masked area
- feathering the edges for softer selection
- smoothing the selection

freehand drawing with lasso tool around selection area
Polygonal lasso tool lets you turn the corner as you draw selection area by clicking with mouse
magnetic lasso tries to draw around the edge of an image based on differences between light and dark pixels.

The Magic Wand tool provides selection of a consistently colored area without having to trace its outline.

Specify the color range, or tolerance in the tool options bar
Specify one of the selection options in the options bar: New, Add To, Subtract From or Intersect With
Tolerance determines the similarity or difference of the pixels selected.
- Enter a value in pixels, ranging from
- 0 (lower value selects a few colors to
- 255 (higher value selects a broader range of colors).
Anti-aliased Defines a smooth edge.
Contiguous selects only adjacent areas using the same colors.
Sample All Layers selects colors using data Default is colors from the active layer only.
Click the color you want to select In the image, .
If Contiguous is selected, all adjacent pixels within the tolerance range are selected. Otherwise, all pixels in the tolerance range (contiguous or not) are selected.

Red color differentiates the protected and unprotected areas.
When you leave Quick Mask mode, the unprotected areas become a selection.
A temporary Quick Mask channel appears in the Channels palette while you work in Quick Mask mode. However, you do all mask editing in the image window.
Use any selection tool to select part of the image
Click the Quick Mask mode button in the toolbox to the right under the foreground/background color.
A color overlay protects the area outside the selection.
Selected areas are left unprotected by this mask.
Selecting in Standard mode and Quick Mask mode
To edit the mask, select a painting tool from the toolbox.
You can switch the black/white foreground colors on the toolbar by clicking the arrow above them.
- The swatches in the toolbox automatically become black and white.
- Paint with white to select more of an image
- paint over them with black to deselect areas,
- Paint with gray or another color to create a semitransparent area, useful for feathering or anti-aliased effects.
To change the quick mask to a selection click the Edit in Standard Mode button to the left of the Quick Mast Button on the toolbar
You can then create a layer with only the selection area in it, or invert the selection

Select>Color Range command selects a specified color or color subset within an existing selection or an entire image.
In the color range dialog box, t o select a color range using sampled colors choose the Sampled Colors tool and Select one of the display options
- Selection Previews only the selection as you build it.
- Image Previews the entire image.
- Position the pointer over the image or preview area, and click to sample the colors you want included.
Adjust the range of colors using the Fuzziness slider or by entering a value.
- To decrease the range of colors selected, decrease the value.
- Increasing fuzziness expands selection
Adjust the selection:
- To add colors, select the plus eyedropper, and click in the preview area or image.
- To remove colors, select the minus eyedropper, and click in the preview area or image.
To preview the selection in the image window, choose an option for Selection Preview:
- None Displays no preview in the image window.
- Grayscale Displays the selection as it would appear in a grayscale channel.
- Black Matte Displays the selection in color against a black background.
- White Matte Displays the selection in color against a white background.
- Quick Mask Displays the selection using the current quick mask settings.
- To select a color range using preset colors, pick a color on the Select dropdown list