Photoshop CS For Dummies

After you create a selection, there are many things you can do to it to make the selection just right for your purposes, including adding to or subtracting from the selection, moving, cloning, feathering, smoothing, transforming, and the list goes on.

Deselecting selections

If you’re finished using a selection or change your mind about the area you want selected, you can easily deselect a selection by:

Reselecting the last selection

If you deselect a selection and decide you want to use that selection again, just right-click (Control+click on a Mac) on the image (with any tool selected) and choose Reselect. You can also press Ctrl+Shift+D (z+Shift+D on a Mac).

Moving a selection

When someone says “move a selection,” he or she could mean two things: the person might want to move the selection marquee or the person could want to move the selected area inside the marquee. Here’s how to do either of these:

Swapping the unselected and selected areas

Suppose you want to select a shape that is on a solid color background. Selecting the solid background is easy, all you need to do is to click with the Magic Wand tool, but selecting the shape can be trickier. The easy way to select the shape is to select the background, and then switch to the inverse selection which will automatically select the shape. Figure 7-6 shows the original selection and then the inverse selection.

Figure 7-6: Selecting a background with the Magic Wand tool is easy (left). After switching to the inverse selection, the duck is selected (right).

Adding or subtracting from a selection

If you discover you need to add to a selection you already made or subtract from a selection, you can do so quickly using the Options bar or keystrokes.

Intersecting a selection

You also can create a selection from the overlapping areas of two selections. This is called an intersection. Here’s how:

  1. Create the first selection using the selection tool of your choice.

  2. Click the Intersect with selection button on the Options bar or hold down Alt+Shift (Option+Shift on a Mac) on the keyboard.

  3. Using the selection tool of your choice, make a second selection that overlaps the first selection, covering the intersecting selection area that you want to create.

    After finishing the second selection, if you’re holding down the keyboard keys, release them.

    The area where the two selections overlapped becomes the active selection, as shown in Figure 7-7.

    Figure 7-7: The intersecting selection is created using two overlapping selections.

Feathering a selection

Feathering makes the transition from the selection to the surrounding area smoother. With Photoshop, you can feather an existing selection using the Feather command.

To feather a selection, right-click (Control+click on a Mac) in the image window and choose Feather from the context-sensitive menu that appears. (Alternatively, you can choose Select→Feather.)

In the Feather Selection dialog box, enter a Feather Radius value — the larger the number you enter, the wider the feathered edge will be. Click the OK button to close the dialog box and add the feathering to the selection.

Using the Border command

Adding a border selection can be very handy. For example, say you’re creating a vignette from a photograph, or adding an outline. Here’s how:

  1. Create a selection using the selection tool of your choice.

  2. Choose Select→Modify→Border.

    Set the width of the border selection by entering the number of pixels in the Border Selection dialog box.

  3. Click OK.

    Figure 7-8 shows a selection boundary. The areas that are selected and are not selected are labeled.

    Figure 7-8: You can use a boundary selection to create a wide outline or photo vignette.

Expanding or contracting a selection

Using the Expand command or Contract command, you can enlarge or shrink the entire selection by a set number of pixels.

Transforming selections

To transform a selection marquee, choose Select→Transform Selection. A box with handles and a center point (also referred to as an origin point) appears, framing your selection marquee, as shown in Figure 7-9.

Figure 7-9: Apply transformations to selection marquees without affecting pixels.

Using this box you can apply the following transformations:

After you finish transforming, press Enter (Return on a Mac) or double-click inside the transform box or click on the Commit button (the check icon) in the Options bar. To cancel, press Esc or Ctrl+period (z+period on a Mac).

Tip

You can transform paths and individual layers. A path is a temporary outline that you can use to create shapes, selections, and masks. Take a look at Chapter 16 for details about creating paths and transforming them. Turn to Chapter 8 to find out how to select a layer and transform it.

Saving a selection

When you make a complicated selection, chances are that you will want to use it again. You can save any selection you create to a channel. You can use the saved selection again at any time by loading it. For details on loading a channel and using saved selections, turn to Chapter 15.

To save a selection follow these steps:

  1. Choose Select→Save Selection.

    Or right-click in the image window (+click on a Mac).

  2. Choose Save Selection from the context-sensitive menu.

    The Save Selection dialog box appears.

  3. Type a name that describes the selection in the Name text box, and then click OK.

To view your saved selection, open the Channels palette and look down the list of channels. You’ll find the saved selection at the bottom of the list. (To find out how the Channels palette works and what you can use saved selections for, turn to Chapter 15.)

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