Selections in Photoshop

Making Selections in Photoshop

The Selection Tools

The marquee and lasso tool icons contain hidden tools, which you can select by holding down the mouse button on the toolbox icon and dragging to the desired tool in the pop-up menu.

The Marquees

The rectangular marquee tool lets you select a rectangular area in an image.

The elliptical marquee tool lets you select elliptical areas.

• Click the rectangle marquee tool in the toolbox.
• Drag it diagonally from the top left to the bottom right corner of the melon to create a rectangular selection.

Deselecting the selection

If you are not happy with your selection, you can deselect it by using either of these methods:
• Choose Select > Deselect.
• Click anywhere in the window outside the selection border.

Moving a selection border

You can move a selection border after you’ve created it by positioning the tool within the selection
and dragging. Notice this technique changes the location of just the selection border; it does not affect the size or shape of the selection.
• Place the marquee tool anywhere inside the selection. The pointer becomes an arrow with a small selection icon next to it.

Repositioning a selection border while creating it

If a selection border isn’t placed exactly where you want it, you can adjust its position and size while creating it.

• Still holding down the mouse button, hold down the spacebar and drag the selection. The border moves as you drag.
• Release the spacebar (but not the mouse button), and drag again. Notice that when you drag without the spacebar, the size and shape of the selection changes, but its point of origin does not.
• When the selection border is positioned and sized correctly, release the mouse button.

The Lassos

The lasso tool lets you make a freehand selection around an area.

The polygon lasso tool lets you make a straight-line selection around an area.

The magnetic lasso tool lets you draw a freehand border that snaps to the edges of an area.

Selecting with the lasso tool

You can use the lasso tool to make selections that require both freehand and straight lines.
It takes a bit of practice to use the lasso tool to alternate between straight line and freehand selections—if you make a mistake, simply deselect and start again.

Hold down Option, release the mouse button, and then begin outlining with short, straight lines by clicking along the edge.
(Notice that the pointer changes from the lasso icon to the polygon lasso icon.)

Adding selections

Holding down Shift while you are selecting an area adds to the current selection
• Select the marquee/lasso tool, and drag a rough outline around your intended selection
• Hold down Shift. A plus sign appears with the marquee/lasso tool pointer.
• Drag the marquee/lasso tool around an area you want to add to the selection; then release the mouse button. The area is added to the current selection.

Subtracting selections

Holding down Option subtracts from the selection.
• Hold down Option. A minus sign appears with the lasso tool pointer.
• Drag the lasso tool around an area you want to remove from the selection; then repeat the process until you’ve finished removing all the unwanted parts of the selection.

Note: If you release the mouse button while drawing a selection with the lasso tool, the selection closes itself by drawing a straight line between the starting point and the point where you release the mouse. To create a more precise border, end the selection by crossing the starting point.

Selecting with the magnetic lasso

You can use the magnetic lasso tool to make freehand selections of areas with high contrast edges.
When you draw with the magnetic lasso, the border automatically snaps to the edge you are tracing.
You can also control the direction of the tool’s path by clicking the mouse to place occasional fastening points in the selection border.

The Magic Wand

The magic wand tool lets you select parts of an image based on the similarity in color of adjacent pixels.
This tool is useful for selecting odd-shaped areas without having to trace a complex outline using the lasso tool.

Selecting with the magic wand

The magic wand tool lets you select adjacent pixels in an image based on their similarity in color.

In the Magic Wand Options palette, the Tolerance setting controls how many similar tones of a color are selected when you click an area. The default value is 32, indicating that 32 similar lighter tones and 32 similar darker tones will be selected.

The Move Tool

The move tool is useful for moving or repositioning an image on its separate layer. Within a selection, the Moov tool cursor becomes a scissors to indicate its power to cut the selected portion of the image.