LESSON 02 – MAKING SELECTIONS

 

BASICS

 

1. The selection tools in Photoshop look like this:

 

or

 

2. When you choose one of the selection tools, you get options at the top for that tool:

 

 

3. All selection tools include four basic options that set how a new selection affects an existing selection.

 

 

RECTANGLE/OVAL SELECTION TOOL

 

This tool is very simple.  It works the same as in Paint.  Just select whatever part of the image you want.

 

CROPPING

 

One common use of the rectangle selection is to crop an image.  To do this, you simply select the part of the image that you want to keep and then you pick Image > Crop.

 

Example

 

becomes

 

INVERSING YOUR SELECTION

 

It is often useful to switch your selection in such a way that all the pixels that were not in your selection are now the pixels that make up your selection. 

 

You can do this by choosing Select > Inverse.

 

FEATHER OPTION

 

Using the feather option, you can make soft edges when you delete pixels.

 

Example

 

In the example below, we first used the oval tool to select the children.  Then we inversed the selection.  Finally, with Feather set to 5 px, we hit delete.

 

becomes

 

 

 

 

 

 

MORE TO COME ON