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| Everything you want to know about -Selections- PS The Right Tool for the Right Job
Photoshop is packed with different tools for making selections. Some of them are absolutely amazing, and frankly some of them are just about useless. In this session, we're only going to focus on the tools widely used by today's professionals for real world selection tasks, and we'll start with perhaps the most important of all selection tools the Pen tool. It's ideal for removing objects from their background, inside and outside of Photoshop.
The Pen tool(s)
If you're really going to become a master at selections, this is one tool you're definitely going to want to master. Although a lot of people are intimidated by the Pen tool at first, it's actually easy to use if you're willing to spend just a little time getting the hang of it. Once you do, it will change the way you work in Photoshop forever, and you'll be dramatically more efficient and more effective when it comes to making accurate selections.
First, a couple of quick basics: we're going to launch right into our first project knocking out a couple of people from their current background and placing them on a totally different background, but for those of you who are new to the Pen tool and dealing with paths, here's a quick look at the basics:
The Pen tool, at its most basic, is kind of like a "connect the dots" tool. You click the Pen tool once and it lays down an anchor point. Move to the area where you want your next point to appear and click your mouse button again. A straight path is drawn between the two anchor points. Every time you move the Pen tool and click a new point, a straight path is drawn. When you reach your original starting point, a tiny circle appears in the bottom right hand corner of the Pen tool's icon telling you that "you've come full circle." Click the original anchor point once and your final point is joined to your original, making a complete path. If the object you want to remove from its background is comprised of
straight lines, you're there all you need to do now is convert your path into a selection.
TIP: To convert your path instantly into a selection, press Ctrl Enter
Sound too good to be true? If everything you need to remove from a background has nothing but perfectly straight lines, it's not (for example, if you're hired by a company that makes product boxes, then you're in luck.) Okay, here's the problem: in real life, most of the objects you want to remove from their background (i.e., people, products, objects, etc.) won't be comprised of straight lines, rather they'll be a combination of straight lines and curves (such as the path shown). In fact, more often than not, it'll be mostly curves with only a few straight lines, and in many cases there will be no straight lines at all. Luckily, the real wonder of the Pen tool is its ability to create smooth accurate curves.
To create a curve with the Pen tool, you only have to change one little thing. Don't just click to lay down an anchor point, but click and drag. That's it. Just click and drag your next point and it becomes a curve. Don't worry about drawing a perfect curve when you lay your point down, you can adjust your curve after the fact by clicking on one of the curve adjustment points that appear on either side of your curve (as shown). You can adjust any anchor point by using the Direct Selection tool (the hollow arrow tool). Just click on it and move it anywhere you'd like.
TIP: To get better, cleaner selections, dig into the object (in this case a person) just a little bit, rather than tracing right along the object edge.
Here's a step by step on how to use the Pen tool to draw a path around the people in our first image, turn your path into a selection, and put them on a totally different background.
step one: Press the letter "p" to get the Pen tool and pick a starting point within your image (in our example, I'm starting with a straight line on the left).
step two: When you come to the first part of the image that has a curve, click, hold, and drag to pull out the curve. Continue clicking and dragging around any areas that have curves (in this photo, it's mostly curves, so you'll be clicking and dragging, moving to the next area, and clicking and dragging again to create another curve).
step three: It won't be long before you click and drag a point and the curve that is created goes in the opposite direction you were hoping. When this happens (and it will again and again, as shown above) all you have to do is step four.
step four: Press Ctrl Z to undo your wayward point. Hold the Alt key then click your previous point, and now when you draw your next curve point, the curve will go in the right direction.
step five: Continue clicking and dragging around your image until you reach the starting point (where the little circle appears in the bottom right hand corner of your Pen tool icon), then click your starting point and your path will be complete ...well, sort of. To get a really accurate path, you should now zoom in (magnify your image) and use the Pen tool with the + sign (the Add Anchor Point tool) to add any points that need adding. You'll probably only need this one tool to edit your paths, because if you move the Add Anchor Point tool over an existing anchor point, the tool temporarily switches to the Direct Selection tool, so you can move any point. Move the same tool over a path, and it switches back to the Add Anchor Point tool.
step six: If you have an anchor point that is a curve and you prefer that it be a straight point instead, just switch to the Convert Point tool and click on the point in question. If it was a curve anchor point, it will become straight. If you click and drag on a straight anchor point with the Convert Point tool, it becomes a curve, and you can adjust the bend of the curve like any other curve by using the curve adjustment handles.
TIP: The Convert Point tool has a hidden function if you hold the Ctrl key and click it on a curve adjustment point, only one side of the curve will be adjusted (rather than both sides, as it does by default).
Once you've made sure your path is a snug fit (and by snug I mean it extends a little into the object you're trying to isolate from its background), you can then convert your path into a selection by pressing Ctrl Enter .
step seven: Once I remove the couple from the background, I'll open a different image and use the Move tool to drag the selected couple onto it. The background I'm dragging them to has other people in it, so I'll have to use the Clone Stamp tool to clone the background area over them so you don't see any hints that they weren't there originally. I may also have to put a rectangular selection around parts of the background, add a slight Feather, and then hold the Alt Ctrl keys to copy and drag a portion of the background over to cover any telltale signs.
If you ever need to get your original path back, it's stored in the Paths palette under the default name "Work Path" (as shown below). To make your path active again, just click on it in the palette. To delete the path, drag it to the Trash icon at the bottom of the Paths palette.
So far, we've looked at using paths to create an accurate selection, but you can also use paths to create a silhouette effect (no background) outside of Photoshop when you place your image into an application such as QuarkXPress or Adobe Illustrator. Since selections only exist within Photoshop, what you'll do is export your path with your file and this path will be recognized in most other professional level, page layout applications. However, this is referred to as a clipping path, because everything outside your path gets "clipped off."
CLIPPING PATHS
To create this special "clipping path" that clips off the background around your object, you start the same way you would with any path clicking, dragging, adjusting curves, etc. It's at the very end of the process that it changes. We pick up at the point that the path is complete (you've connected your last anchor point to the first one).
step one: Go to the Paths palette, and double click on your Work Path. This brings up the Save Path dialog box where you can name your path. (Note: you must name your path to create a clipping path.)
step two: Once you've named your path, go to the Paths palette's pop down menu and choose Clipping Path (as shown). This will bring up the Clipping Path dialog box so you can determine which of your paths will be used as a clipping path (in this case, you should only have one path, so the choice should be pretty easy).
step three: Choose your named path from the Path pop up menu in the Clipping Path dialog. Although it's no longer absolutely necessary to enter a Flatness setting in this dialog, if you're outputting the final image to a PostScript device (such as a high resolution image setter), you may want to enter a Flatness setting to help speed printing time and avoid potential PostScript errors. A rule of thumb is to use between 2 and 3 for low res PostScript devices (such as laser printers), and between 7 and 10 for high resolution image setters. But since I usually proof to a low res printer, and then finally output to a high res image setter, I've always used a Flatness setting of 2, and it's worked wonderfully no PostScript errors and faster printing. If your final output is a color inkjet printer, you don't need to set a Flatness setting you can just leave that field blank.
SAVING YOUR CLIPPING PATH FILE
There are two file formats that support the embedding of Clipping Paths: EPS and TIFF. (We usually use EPS because most professional level applications support EPS clipping paths without any problems. TIFF clipping paths are supported by more and more applications, but not all.)
Other Path Tips
Once you've created a path (and while it's still active) you can change the size of your path the same way you would any other object using Free Transform. To bring up Free Transform on your path, just make sure your path is active, then press Ctrl T . Now you can scale your path by holding the Shift key and dragging any corner outward to make the path larger (or inward to make it smaller).
Besides saving this path to your Paths palette, if you think you might ever need this exact path again, you can save it and actually store it within Photoshop so you can get to it any time. Here's how:
step one: Make your path active.
step two: Go under the Edit menu and choose Define Custom Shape. A dialog box will appear where you can name your path.
step three: Click OK and this path is now available any time by switching to the Custom Shape tool, clicking on the 2nd icon from the left in the Options Bar (which gives you a path, rather than a Shape Layer), and then clicking on the Shapes Picker in the Options Bar to choose your named path (as shown below).
Not only can you create your own custom shapes using the Pen tool, you can edit existing shapes as well. Just click a custom shape, drag it out, then use the Pen tools to edit it like any other path (or change it into a selection by pressing Ctrl Enter ).
BEYOND THE POLYGONAL LASSO TOOL
If you're totally uncomfortable with the Pen tool, you can get one part of the Pen tool's functionality (the straight line part) using the Polygonal Lasso tool (found under the regular Lasso tool). The only bad part is the Polygonal Lasso tool (handy as it sometimes is) only makes straight line selections. If you need to select a curved area, you can temporarily switch to the regular Lasso tool, but you'd better have a steady hand, because that's how you're drawing your curve by hand. That's another reason why the Pen tool holds such an advantage over the Lasso tools.
Extracting Objects from their Backgrounds
Photoshop's Extract feature is designed to help with really tough masking jobs, such as windblown hair, tree leaves, etc. Back in Photoshop 6.0, it was found near the bottom of the Image menu, but in Photoshop 7.0, Adobe moved it to the Filter menu, right near the top. ( Ctrl Alt X ) if you don't want to go digging for it. Here's how it works: When you choose Extract, the dialog box shown above appears. At the top left is a Toolbar of tools used in extracting your image, and you work within the preview window with these tools. The top tool is called the Edge Highlighter tool, and you use it to paint around the edges of the object you want to extract (in this case, a person). By doing this, you're telling Photoshop where the edges of the person are. To get better results with this tool, let your paint stroke overlap both the edge of what you want to keep and the background that you want to erase. Adobe says to use a 50/50 split (half of your highlight on the edge you want to keep, and half on the background), but I've been using this method: 1/3 into the object and 2/3 into the background area. I feel like I'm getting better results from this than the 50/50 split. Try it both ways and see what you think.
Once your edge boundary has been defined (and fully enclosed), switch to the Fill tool (it looks like a paint bucket) and click once inside the boundary area. This fills the interior with a color, telling Photoshop "This is what I want to keep" (as shown below).
If the object you want to extract doesn't touch the edges of your image window, you'll have to connect your starting point and ending points Oust like you would when drawing a selection with the Lasso tool) by painting back to your starting point so the entire object is enclosed. Again, if your object extends beyond the image window, you don't have to paint in that area. In the example shown above, you don't have to paint a stroke along the bottom because it extends out of the image window, and Photoshop will include that portion of the image automatically. If you enclose too much, or use too large a brushstroke, you can use the Eraser tool in the Extract dialog box.
Now you can press the Preview button (near the top right, under the Cancel button) to see how your extraction will look. If parts of your image have dropped out, it's probably because too much of the stroke is inside the object you want to keep. If you need to go back and re edit, in the Preview section turn on the Show Highlight checkbox, and then use the Eraser tool to remove heavy parts of the stroke that appear inside the object. Then, click the Fill tool inside again and press the Preview button for a new extraction. Extract does offer you one "undo," so if you make a mistake (or erase too much) while you're still in Extract, press Ctrl Z to undo your last step. (Note: If you're still using Photoshop 5.5, sadly, there is no extract undo.)
GETTING BETTER EXTRACTIONS
Here are three tips to making a good "extraction":
(1) Use the right brush sizes for your edge highlighting
Use a larger brush for intricate details (such as windblown hair, tree leaves, etc.) and a much smaller brush for more clearly defined areas (such as edges of a shirt or pants). You can do this manually as you draw your edges by holding the Left Bracket key on your keyboard (to make your brush smaller), or the Right Bracket key (to make your brush larger).
To help you make your edge highlight, you can use a feature called "Smart Highlighting," which helps you "snap" to the edge of well defined areas (don't use it on hair or other fine areas to be extracted, just on well defined areas). To use it, simply hold the Ctrl key while using the Edge Highlighter tool. Your cursor will change to a circle with four little ticks (kind of like a precise cursor) to help you target your edge more easily. As you drag, it will snap to any well defined edge. This can be a huge timesaver. Plus, since you're only supposed to use it on well defined areas, it automatically uses a very small brush size, so you can start with a large brush, and when you get to a well defined area, just hold the Ctrlkey and the brush will automatically shrink down to the proper size for that area. When you get past that area, and need a larger brush again, just release the Ctrl key.
(2) Don't waste time cleaning up in Extract
Back in Photoshop 6, Adobe introduced two new tools to help clean up the edges of your extraction: the Cleanup tool (which makes the mask that Extract creates transparent, like a pressure sensitive eraser might do) and the Edge Touchup tool (for cleaning edges). My advice? Skip both of these and just click OK. Well, first ask yourself, "Why did I use Extract?" It was because part of the object you wanted had intricate detail (such as frizzy or wild hair, right?). Well, if the hair looks okay, but other parts of the image have missing parts or are damaged, just click OK to complete your extraction, because there's a better way to deal with extraction cleanup. Instead of trying to fix the problem in Extract, fix it in Photoshop using the History Brush (think of this brush as an "undo on a brush"). If a part of the image got erased accidentally in the extraction (such as part of a shoulder or a hand), just switch to the History Brush and paint it back in. This will save you LOADS of time and frustration, and it will keep your time in the Extract dialog box to a minimum. If there are any bits of background left within your image (and there often will be some floating "bits"), just use the Eraser tool to wipe them away.
(3) After you click OK in Extract, immediately duplicate your layer I know, this sounds kind of silly just duplicate the layer and you're probably waiting for a second step, like change the Blend Mode or something like that, but you don't need to simply duplicate the layer. You'll be amazed at how it "builds up" detail that might have been lost in the extraction. It's almost like a "magic bullet" for fixing problem extractions. There have been cases where I've had to duplicate the layer five or six times to have it fill in enough, but usually once will do the trick.
Once I've duplicated the layer, I generally Merge Down ( Ctrl E) then use the History Brush to bring back any areas I missed. Try this duplication trick once, and you'll use it again and again.
EXTRACT MAKES YOUR BACKGROUND TRANSPARENT
A really nice feature of Extract is that it automatically converts your Background layer into a transparent layer so your image is ready to be dragged onto a different background. If, however, you want to add a background behind your newly extracted image, you can drag one in, or have Photoshop create a new white Background layer for you. Just create a new layer (above your extracted image) then go under the Layer menu, under New, and choose Background From Layer. It will take your new blank layer and convert it into a real Background layer, placing it at the bottom of your Layers palette stack.
ONCE YOU'VE EXTRACTED, YOU CAN EDIT USING A LAYER MASK
If you have an image that looks like it might need a lot of touch up after the extraction, you can make the clean up easier by adding a Layer Mask (this allows you to make more mistakes during the extraction process). To use this method, follow these steps:
step one: Duplicate your Background layer, then in the Layers palette, hide the original Background layer by clicking on the Eye icon next to it in the Layers palette.
step two: Run the Extract filter on this copy layer.
step three: When your extraction preview looks good, click OK and the Extraction will be applied to your copy layer image. Hold the Ctrl key and in the Layers palette, click once on the name of your extracted layer to put a selection around the extracted object (in this case, a person) on that layer.
step four: Click the Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers palette to add a Layer Mask to your extracted image. Now you can edit the mask using the Paintbrush tool with black as your Foreground color. If you make a mistake, switch your Foreground color to white and paint back in the accidentally erased area.
Faking Extracted Hair
Having an extraction with "windblown" hair has become such a popular thing that people are actually faking extracted hair in shots to make it look like the shot was extracted. They do this when the person either has very neat, closely groomed hair (no wispyness), or if the original image was silhouetted from its background using the Pen tool, leaving a hard edge.
The most common method for faking wispy hair is to use the Smudge tool set to 1 pixel and paint out little strokes of hair. Paint in the direction of the hair so it looks more natural. Basically what you're adding is little sprigs of hair, sticking out like they're reacting to static electricity. It sounds silly (and it is) but it's fairly effective in faking the extracted look.
Saving Selections
Even if you've painstakingly created a selection, once you Deselect that selection, it's gone (well, technically, you could go to the History palette and undo it, as long as your selection was created within your last 20 steps, or you could try choosing Reselect from the Select menu but both of those will disappear in short order if you don't use them right away). So how do you keep, or store, a selection for use at a later time (maybe an hour later, a day later, or even years later)? You have to Save the selection. You do this while the selection is still active just go under the Select menu and choose Save Selection (it's near the bottom of the menu). This brings up the Save Selection dialog box (shown below).
This dialog box basically has two functions: (1) It gives you a chance to name your selection (which I only do in rare situations where I have multiple saved selections); and (2) it lets you decide where to save it (by default, it will save this selection with the current file you're working on, and normally that's what you'll want to do, but if you decide you want to save the selection into another document [hey, it happens] or as its own separate document, you can do that from the pop up menus). Click OK, and your selection has been saved.
Where is your selection actually saved?
It's saved as an Alpha channel (or just "channel" for short) in your current document, and you can see your saved selection by going to the Channels palette. You'll see it at the bottom of the palette, and if you didn't type in a name, it will be named "Alpha 1 " by default.
How to get your selection back
If you decide at some point that you want your lovingly created selection back, you can go under the Select menu and choose Load Selection. This brings up the Load Selection dialog box (shown below).
The advantages of using the Load Selection dialog box to reload your saved selection is that you have options at the bottom of the dialog for how you want the selection loaded. For example, although most of the time you'll want your selection "as is" (using the default setting of New Selection), there may be situations where you want your saved selection to either add to an existing selection, subtract from an existing selection, or intersect with one (I've yet to ever intersect, but hey, that's just me). The other advantage is that when you have a lot of saved selections, you can choose which one to load from the Channel pop up menu (as shown below).
So what's the disadvantage of the Load Selection dialog box? It's slower than using the handy keyboard shortcut Alt Ctrl 4, which instantly loads your saved selection (at least the one named Alpha 1). Why the "4"? It's because the Red, Green, and Blue channels take up the first three spots, and your first saved Alpha channel takes up the 4th spot. If you save another Alpha channel (a second selection) it will be in the 5th spot. To load it, you'd press Alt Ctrl 5, and so on.
Note: If you're working on a CMYK image, the C, M, Y, and K channels take up the first four spots, so to load your first saved selection, you'd have to use Option Command 5 (PC: Alt Control 5), because it will be in the 5th spot (and so on). TIP: One final tip for cleaning up extracted images: Once you have them saved as an Alpha channel, you may sometimes see gray "junk" around the edges in the channel (stuff that isn't solid black or white, instead they're faded shades of gray that look like dirt). I use Levels ( Ctrl L) to move any gray "leftovers" back to solid black or solid white. Just drag the top right Input Levels slider to the left to make "junk" inside the white areas of your mask turn white, and conversely, drag the left Input Levels slider to the right (as shown above) to make the gray areas black.
Tough Selections Made Easier by Increasing Contrast
Another popular method for making a tricky selection easier is to add extreme contrast between the object you're trying to select and the background behind it. Once you've increased the contrast, it usually makes it much easier to select the object so much so that you can often use the Magic Wand to make your selection. Here's how:
step one: Open the image that has an object that you want to select. Go to the bottom of the Layers palette and add a Levels Adjustment Layer (click and hold on the half black/half white circle as shown at right). If you're comfortable with using Curves, you can add extreme contrast by creating a very steep curve, but in this example we'll use Levels.
step two: When the Levels dialog box appears, use the top three sliders (the Input Levels sliders) to create extreme contrast. Depending on the image, you may have to drag the center (gamma) slider all the way to the right (or to the left) and then move the far right highlight slider the same distance to the center. Your goal is to create as much contrast between the object you want to select and the background, regardless of how damaged the image may look (and it will look totally messed up, but don't sweat it, we'll fix that with just one click in a later step).
step three: Once you've created the extreme contrast, click OK and the Levels Adjustment Layer will appear in the Layers palette (as shown at below). There should now be a very visible difference between the background area of your image and the object you want to select, making it a breeze to simply click the Magic Wand tool on the background area to select it. If any other areas need to be added to the selection, just hold the Shift key and click the Magic Wand tool in those areas, or use the Lasso tool to add them in. Then, go under the Select menu and choose Inverse to select your object rather than the background.
step four: Now that you've made your selection, there's no need to keep that Levels Adjustment Layer (which was making everything look bad), so simply drag it to the Trash icon to delete it, and voila you're left with your image looking just the way it did when you opened it, and you have a perfect selection around your object.
This is a perfect opportunity to deal with the edge pixels that will be visible when we try and place this shark on a different background. Here's how it works:
step one: Copy your selected image and then open the background image you want to place it on. Choose Paste under the Edit menu and the selected object will appear on its own layer. The edge fringe will be pretty obvious since it came from a dark background, and the new background we're placing it on is lighter and more colorful.
step two: Go to the Layers palette, and Ctrl Click on the layer's name to put a selection around the object.
step three: Go under the Select menu, under Modify, and choose Border. This adds a border selection to your selected area. Enter 6 pixels and click OK.
step four: To soften the edges of this border selection, go under the Select menu and choose Feather. When the Feather dialog box appears, enter 2 pixels, and click OK. Then, in the Layers palette, click on the Background layer while your selection is still in place.
step five: Press Ctrl J to put this selected area of your Background layer up on its own layer. Now, in the Layers palette, drag this new layer to the top of your layer stack above the object layer. This will make your object look pretty soft because of the feathering you applied to it.
step six: To finish hiding the edge fringe, all you have to do is change the Blend Mode of this layer from Normal to Lighten. That's it the fringe is hidden.
It's Okay to Use the Magnetic Lasso ...once in a While
If you've used the Magnetic Lasso tool before, you probably weren't thrilled with it. That's because it's not a complete solution you have to think of it as a timesaving tool that does PART of the selection job not the whole thing. If you think of it that way, you change from: “This tool stinks" to "Hey, well that saved me some time."
It will help you to remember that you almost always (okay, always) have to do some cleanup with the regular Lasso tool after using its magnetic brother (incidentally, "magnetic" means that when you're dragging the tool within your image, it snaps to any edges that it detects just like a magnet to metal, henceforth the name).
Here's how to use it for PART of a selection project:
The first thing to keep in mind is: Only use this tool for selections where the edges of the object you want to select are very visible and has good contrast from its background. If those two criteria aren't met, you can move on.
To get the Magnetic Lasso tool, press Shift L until it's visible in the Toolbox. If you look up at the Options Bar for the tool's options, the three areas that determine how the tool will operate are Width, Frequency, and Edge Contrast. Here's how they affect its use:
Width: This is how far from the edge of the object you can place your cursor before it snaps to it. By default, you can be up to 10 pixels away from the edge and it will still snap.
TIP: If you press the Caps Lock key on your keyboard before you start using the Magnetic Lasso, you can see the Width area displayed by your cursor.
Frequency: This determines how many anchor points are laid down when using a Magnetic tool (there's also a Magnetic Pen tool just in case you were wondering). After dragging for a short distance, you'll see it snap as it attaches an anchor point to your image. The default setting works well, but if you want to hug your image more often (in the case of a particularly jagged edge), you can raise this value. For smoother selections, it may work better if you lower it.
Edge Contrast: This setting is what determines how much of an edge difference needs to be present before the tool will snap. In general, if there's a clean edge with a lot of contrast between the background and the edge, you can use a high number. If the edges aren't well defined, you'll need to use a lower number (10% or lower). Let's put it to use:
step one: Open an image and choose the Magnetic Lasso tool by pressing Shift L until it appears in the Toolbox.
step two: Click once on the edge you want to trace and take your finger off the mouse button. Now, drag the mouse around the edge you want to select and the tool will automatically snap to the edges. TIP: If the tool misses an edge, backtrack to the point it missed, hold the Alt Key and hold the mouse button down. This switches you to the regular Lasso tool, enabling you to add the missed area manually. When you've added this missed area, release the AltKey and the mouse button and it switches you back to the Magnetic Lasso, and you can continue from that point.
step three: When you reach the place where you originally started your selection, the Magnetic Lasso cursor will change by appending a small circle on the bottom right. Click the mouse once to complete the selection.
Magnetic Lasso Shortcuts
Here are two tips that will make using this tool quicker and easier:
• To increase/decrease the Width (how far away you can have your cursor from the edge), press the Bracket keys on your keyboard: The Left Bracket makes the Width smaller, the Right Bracket makes it larger.
• To remove the last anchor point you created, press Backspace To remove additional anchor points, keep pressing Backspace.
TIP: If you need to extend your selection beyond the border of your image, out into the Canvas area you can. Just hold the Option (PC: Alt) key and you can extend right out.
Making Oval and Round Selections Look Easy
it seems like drawing a selection around a circular object (such as a globe) would be simple, but because of the way Photoshop draws circular selections (it starts from the point where you click the mouse), it can be amazingly frustrating. Here are three tricks that can make it much easier:
Circular Selection Secret #1
Switch to the Elliptical (round) Marquee tool by pressing Shift M. Start by holding both the Shift and Alt keys, and then click near the center of the globe. (Holding the Shift key draws a perfect circle; holding the Alt key draws outward from the center rather than from a corner as it does by default.) As you drag, you'll probably notice that your selection is not perfectly centered. Here's the trick: Keep holding the Shift and Alt keys, and add the Spacebar. This lets you reposition the circle as you're drawing it, and with just a few adjustments (one way or the other), you'll have a perfect selection.
Circular Selection Secret #2
This is the old "rulers and guides" method. It's another quick way that looks like it won't work at first, but it always puts a smile on your face when you realize it does:
step one: Press Ctrl R to make your rulers visible.
step two: In the upper left hand corner of your image window (right where the horizontal and vertical rulers meet), grab the Zero point, and drag it into your document. Place it so that it borders the top and left side of the globe. With the Elliptical Marquee tool, click at the new 0 marks of both the horizontal and vertical rulers and drag out your circle, and it will fall right into place.
Oval Selection Secret
Same scenario as above, but this time we just draw a circle any size, starting at any point and release the mouse button. Next, go under the Select menu and choose Transform Selection. Free Transform like selection points appear around your image, and you can now resize the selection to the exact size. To move it into place, just move your cursor inside the bounding box, and it changes to an arrow, enabling you to reposition the selection wherever you'd like. Once it's in position over the globe, just press Return or Enter to make the transformation permanent. Also, if the image you're trying to select is not perfectly round (or perhaps more egg shaped), this technique works great because you can move any side in or out as needed.
Paint Selections using Quick Mask
If you'd like to paint your selections, rather then trying to draw them with the Lasso or Pen tools, you'll love Quick Mask mode. This mode enables you to "paint" selections, using Photoshop's painting tools. You'll see why that's so cool in just a few minutes. First, a simple selection using Quick Mask mode:
SETUP: By default, when you paint with Quick Mask, the areas you paint are masked, and the non painted areas are what will become your selection. For people with a prepress or printing background, this "cutting of masks" is a very natural way to think, because they did it manually for years. However, if you're new to masking, it might help if you change Quick Mask's preferences so that what you paint becomes the selection, rather than having to paint over the areas that you don't want as part of the selection. You change this preference by double clicking on the Quick Mask icon near the bottom of the Toolbox. This brings up the Quick Mask Options (shown below).
To have what you paint become a selection, choose Selected Areas for Color Indicates. Now, on to our first project:
step one: Draw a loose selection around the object you want to select. Don't try to select the exact edge of the object; you're just doing this to save yourself some time when you're actually in Quick Mask mode (you'll see what I mean when we're there).
step two: Switch to Quick Mask mode by pressing the letter "q." The background around your object will be visible, but the object that you want to select will be filled with a red tint. The clear area around your object represents the masked area, and the red area represents where your selection will be. Make your Foreground color white, get the Paintbrush tool, choose a medium size, hard edged brush tip, and start painting around the edge of your image. If you make a mistake and accidentally paint into your image, just switch your Foreground color to black, and paint the red area back in. Don't worry about damaging your image you're not really painting on the image itself you're painting on a special mask layer, so your image is totally protected. For tighter areas, shrink the size of your brush.
step three: When you've painted in your object so that only your background is showing, switch back to Standard mode by pressing the letter "q" again. You'll see a selection appear around your object. If it's not a perfect selection, don't sweat it just switch back to Quick Mask mode, do a little painting touch up (by the way, you can use any painting tool you want), and then switch back to Standard mode (press the letter "q" again) to see your results.
THE QUICK MASK ADVANTAGE
Okay, so painting your selections is great, but there are other cool tricks yet to be uncovered. How about this: What do you do when the edges of the image you want to select are very soft? Simple change to a soft edged brush. In class, we're going to select a shell with a very soft edge. We'll do the same procedure as before, with one twist.
step one: Draw a loose selection around the object (in this case, a shell). Switch to Quick Mask mode by pressing the letter "q."
step two: Get the Paintbrush tool, but this time choose a medium size, soft edged brush, and paint along the edge of your image. You'll see that your strokes are softer along the edge of your image. It's almost like you're painting a feathered edge.
step three: When you switch back to Standard mode, you'll see a selection in place that probably doesn't look very precise, but copy that selected area and paste it over a background and look at how the soft edges blend!
Another great thing about Quick Mask selections is that you can blur the mask for soft edges, or blur the mask a little and then use Levels to slightly increase or decrease the size of the mask by dragging the Input Levels sliders. This is yet another way to shrink your selection to hide edge fringe. Here's a step by step:
step one: Once you've made your Quick Mask selection and you're still in Quick Mask mode (you can see the red mask), apply a 1 pixel (or a .5 pixel) Gaussian Blur to the Mask.
step two: Go under the Image menu, under Adjustments, and choose Levels. Grab the gamma (center) slider and drag it to the right to shrink the size of your selection mask, or to the left to enlarge the size of the selection mask. When you switch back to Standard mode, you'll have tweaked the size of the selection in the direction you wanted to go.
I hope you Enjoyed this and I think that anybody could learn something from this, If you find anything wrong or have any questions, ask away. 
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LucidgrafX We are eternal.all this pain is an illusion. | |
| Very nice tutorial Lucid!
Helped me out a lot, it shows that you put A LOT of work in to it, great job!
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| reply to Lucid V
Super tute, Lucid V  ! That pen tool is intimidating at first, but it so powerful.
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POW*MIA -- Never Forget! | |
 xiphrexPremium
join:2001-09-13
united kingd | reply to Lucid V
Excellent tips there!
For me, the pen tool is one of the best tools in ps. Once you know how to use it, its very powerful!
Good job Lucid!:) | |
| Thank you, and yes the Pen tool is one of the most important tools to master. It is my selection tool of choice.
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LucidgrafX We are eternal.all this pain is an illusion. | |
xiphrexPremium
join:2001-09-13
united kingd | For me this is almost going off the front page. So I am wondering if maybe there could be some sort of dslreports tutorials section at the top of the forum where all these great tuts can be listed?
I have not been around very long, and already have seen many tutorials, from some sort of ball thing, to how to use some tools in photoshop. It would be handy to have these all in a section linked, so that they are there for reference for people like myself who might not need a section of a tutorial right now, but will definately need it in the future. It would also grow into a formidable tutorial section, reflecting the enormous talent that this forum has.
Just a suggestion, actually to be honest Im not entirely sure if this already exists, or if it was suggested before, but worth a try I say. 
What do you think? | |
| »Links to great tutorials
Is that what your talking about?
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xiphrexPremium
join:2001-09-13
united kingd | said by KingOfPants:
»Links to great tutorials
Is that what your talking about?
Yup, is that a link at the top of the forum though? I cant seem to find it... | |
| Its labeled "Check out some great tutorials by DSL Reports users"
Just ctrl+f then type that in.
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xiphrexPremium
join:2001-09-13
united kingd | Thanks | |
| wow I never even knew about that little collection of Tut's we have going there. Very nice indeed, Although it should be in a better spot.
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LucidgrafX We are eternal.all this pain is an illusion. | |
 lemekimPremium
join:2002-02-11
Philadelphia, PA | Re: Everything you want to know about -Selections said by Lucid V:
wow I never even knew about that little collection of Tut's we have going there. Very nice indeed, Although it should be in a better spot.
lol it's in the middle of the header standing by itself, in bold, centered with nothing else around it! What better spot is there!
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| my goodness your right any more obvious and it would hit me in the nose. Maybe thats the problem, its TOo obvious, so I missed it..... Yea .... sure.
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LucidgrafX We are eternal.all this pain is an illusion. | |
lemekimPremium
join:2002-02-11
Philadelphia, PA | lol actually it is possible to be too obvious - like in this case, you might expect to find this link between all the dozens of links below it, and completely miss the lonely looking link above the clutter =)
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