Selection Tools

These notes are intended to support your learning, they are not

meant to be used as an alternative to attending classes.

To compile these I have used Adobe Photoshop on a Mac using

OS 10.7.5. Screen shots of Adobe Photoshop CS6 palettes and tools

have been used as an illustration throughout. I have also used

Apple’s iPhoto as a tool for importing and viewing files. Making a

Quicktime movie to display your work is also covered

PC users, or users of other versions of Mac OS, may notice

variations. They will not be so dissimilar as to invalidate these

notes. The main difference between PC and Mac will be apparent

with keyboard shortcuts, for most simply use control instead of

APPLE.

All photographs have been produced by John Kiely

Selection tools

There are a variety of tools open for us too use in Photoshop. The first family of

tools are the Marquees.  These are very basic selection tools and are not adjustable after the selection has been made.  The rectangular marquee is used in this instance to select the centre section of and image.

Once selected this can be copied, using Edit / Copy and a new image created using File/New.  This will default to the size of the selection.

Once open the images can be pasted on using Edit/Paste.

The elliptical marquee gives an oval selection.

In this image the centre section was selected.

Select/Inverse was then used to change the selected area to the outside section.  To create a vignette, making the image look old, the outside would have to be deleted.  This would give a sharp edge if used in this mode.  To soften this use Select/Modify/Feather and give it a value of 300

Press delete (backspace) and cut to white.

The final members of this grouping are the Single Row Marquee Tools.  As the name suggests these just select a single row of pixels, either vertical or horizontal.  These can be used for adding straight lines or a border to an image.

Next in lone in the selection tool family are the lasso tools. You have the choice of three lasso styles.

Lasso tool

Hold the mouse button and draw around the edge of the area to be selected, the

selection will follow the path of the cursor. If you release the mouse the end of

the path will join the start, this can make it a little frustrating to use at times.

This tool however does enable you to accurately select complicated shapes, if

you have a steady hand.

Polygonal Lasso Tool

This allows you to anchor points on the path. To do this you simply click at

intervals along the path the line will be anchored at that point. This does build up

the path in a series of straight lines. If you click in close succession then

Photoshop will interpret it as a double click and link the last point to the first. All

is not lost, you can select ‘add to selection’ from the tool bar at the top of the

screen.

You can then restart from the last point until the selection is complete, if you do

not perfectly line up the points then part of the selection will be omitted.

Magnetic lasso tool.

This sounds like the ideal selection tool, you simply click and hold the mo use and

drag it around the edge of the area to be selected. Photoshop moves the

selection path to the edge of a contrast change. The sensitivity can be controlled

from the tool bar.

Unfortunately this is not particularly active unless you have a large shift in

contrast, you can, however, use the add to and remove from selection tools to

fine tune it.

Magic wand

This selects areas of like tone, you simply select the tolerance, the lower the

setting the more accurate the selection will be, then click on the tone to be

selected.

This will rarely give you the full area that you need. I suggest starting with a

tolerance of 20, this can be decreased or increased as necessary. As before you

can select ‘add to selection, and click on further areas that need to be selected

until you have the desired result.

A recent addition to the Magic Wand section is the Quick Select Tool.  To use this simply select a brush size, the click and hold, dragging the cursor across the area that you want to be selected.  As before you can control the amount selected by using the tolerance setting.

Basic quick mask

In it’s simplest form quick mask is a useful tool when you need to select either

complicated or multiple areas. Start by making a selection using the magic wand

tool. Once you have a reasonable amount of the area selected click on the

‘quick mask’ button’

This will turn the selected area red. This is based on the red opaque that screen

printers use for blocking out part of the screen.

If you double click on the q uick mask button you will be presented with the

control panel. From this you can choose whether to mask the selected or the

masked areas, and you can alter the opacity of the red. If you need to see the

image through the mask them set it at 50%.

Once you have selected your preferences then you can start to refine your

selection. Use both the paint brush and eraser tool to add to or subtract from the

selection.

Once you have completed making your selection you can return to the normal

screen by clicking the button to the left of the quick mask one.

One use of this selection method could be to make a background less distracting.  In the images used for this exercise the conditions are dull and wet, yet the background is bright and saturated because of colourful signs.  The first ask is to choose 'inverse' from elect.  This selects the background rather than the figure.

Using a hue/stauration adjustment layer the background can then be toned down.

Before

After

HELP I’ve lost my selection!

Don’t panic, you don’t have to start from scratch. This is usually caused by

accidentally selecting another selection tool and cancelling your work. If it was

the last thing that you did then simply press COMMAND and Z (the command

key is the one with the apple on it) This undoes the last action. If you have

carried out other actions then go to Window / History

You can now drag the actions, one at a time, into the bin at the bottom of this

window until you have your selection back.

Crop Tool
The crop tool, as its name suggests, is used for cropping an image.  This can be done to unrestrained format, or you can add width, height and resolution to the control panel at the top of the screen.  It is particularly useful if you need to prepare prints to a specific size, such as for printing.

The cursor is simply dragged across the image until either the desired crop, or the preset format id achieved.  CS6 gives a grid based on the rule of thirds to aid composition.  Once happy with the selection simply press Enter.

Hue and saturation 2

The use of hue and saturation manipulation is widely used in ‘life style

photography’, formerly known as makeover. This new style has moved away

from the formal heavily made up and glamorised image to a bright, lively, high

key style. One of the market leaders is Venture. Portraits are informally posed

and heavily manipulated. One image used on their website was of a girl cart

wheeling across the frame, about five images of her on one sheet. On each

image the colour of her track suit has been changed. Another featured a

Dalmatian which changed the colour of its spots as it progressed. This approach

is quick, easy and impressive.

http://www.venturephotography.com/

Three images of the same person are needed, normally front view then slightly

angled both directions. Keep the front view as standard. On the examples

shown the red in the shirt and head scarf were selected.

Feather was set at 2, and Select / Modify / Expand / 4 was used. The feather

softens the edge of the selection, while the expand stretches the selection

slightly to make sure that the edges are included.

Using the adjustment layer palette hue/saturation is selected. The hue slider is

used to change the colour of the areas selected. Once happy with this one the

other angled view was also manipulated in the same way.

Once happy with the results the images are then flattened. Without this the

adjustment layers would be left behind when the images are moved to the same

sheet.

Selecting the centre image, Image / Canvas size is selected. The image is kept

central on the control panel and the width is tripled. The remaining two images

can then be dragged onto this image using the move tool.

Once they are positioned attention can be turned to the background. In this case

the eraser tool on a low opacity was used to bled then edges of the background.

The image was saved as a tiff including layers.