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The selection tools in Adobe Photoshop are: magic wand, marquee, and lasso tools. Using these
selection tools, you can select certain part or shape of a picture, and move it to another picture.
When you use these tools to create a selection, you will have a blinking dash (also known as the
marching ants) surrounding your selected area. You can move this selected area to another
picture, using your move tool (the black arrow tool next to marquee tool).
1. Click on your move tool and roll over the selected area.
2. Make sure that your cursor will have a small scissors in it.
3. Drag and drop the area to your other picture / file.
The selection tools have the same basic options, which you can find below your menu. Out of all
the different properties from each of the tool, the feather option is the most commonly used.
Feathering allows the selected area to be blurry at the sides.
Other than these properties, more option for selection tools can be found under the menu:
Select.
The magic wand will create a selection based on colors. In its properties, you have the tolerance
option. The default value is 32. By setting the tolerance to lower value, it will become more
specific in selecting the color. The color will have to match exactly; hence your selection area will
be smaller. By setting the value to be higher, it will be less tolerance (it will create a selection on
a broader range of colors), resulting in bigger selection area.
Marquee Tools
The marquee tools have 4 options under it: rectangular marquee tool, elliptical marquee tool,
single row marquee tool, and single column marquee tool.
The tools, which are mostly used, are the rectangular and elliptical marquee tools.
The marquee tools have the feather option in its properties. If you want to use feather option,
always set the value first before creating your selection.
In using feathering, please consider the size of your picture. If your picture is small, please do not
apply such a big value for feather. If you have a pop up message “No pixels are more than 50%
selected”, that means your feather value is too big, hence no area of selection can be made. So
you need to reduce the value of your feather option.
Lasso Tool
Lasso tools allow you to create a free form selection. You can trace out the shape of a particular
object using the lasso tools. The tools under the lasso tools are: Lasso tool, Polygonal Lasso Tool,
and Magnetic Lasso Tool.
Lasso tool allows you to create your own area of selection. Use your mouse to draw your
selection area.
Magnetic lasso tool allows you to trace out the outline of your object and create a selection
based on it.
Adjust the frequency to set how often it will leave a marking point. The higher the
frequency, the more marking points it will leave.
You can create your own marking point, by clicking on the picture.
Your ending point must click with your starting point. If you cannot do so, just
double click after you reach your last point.
Selection Menu
The selection menu contains more options in working with your area of selection.
Below are the explanations for some of the commonly used options.
Select inverse
When you create a selection, your area of selection is inside the blinking dash. If you want to
select the area outside your area of selection, then use select inverse. Normally what happen
when you select inverse, is that the blinking dash will also appear on the 4 sides of your picture.
Modify
Example:
Extract option
Extract option is useful for you to extract an object from its background. It is advisable to use this
option to work with shape / object, which is a bit hard to select using the selection tools, like the
lasso tools. For example: picture of a hairy dog. It will be quite difficult and tedious to create a
detailed selection using magnetic lasso tool because of the fur of the dog. So you can try using
the extract option.
The extract option can be found under the menu Filter Extract.
1. By default your highlighter is selected. You can choose to set the brush into a smaller
size. Paint the outline of the area that you want to extract.
2. Click on the fill tool (located under your highlighter). Drop the color inside the outline that
you create earlier.
3. Click preview to see your extracted area. If you are satisfied, click OK.
Quick Mask
You can use quick mask to create a better and more detailed selection area. First you need to
create a selection area (use any of the selection tool). Click Edit in quick mask mode. This can
be found in your tool bar, just below your color option.
Once you do so, the area that you do not select will turn pink, while your selected area retains its
color (not to worry). Here you can paint your selection area (to add or remove the selection)
using your brush tool. You will notice your background and foreground color turn to black and
white.
Painting using the brush tool with the black color will allow you to remove your selection area,
while choosing the white color will allow you to add your selection area.
After you are done, you can click back Edit in standard mode.
See how interesting the effect is. You can try using other filter options, or using brushes.