Week #5 ~ Section ♳

April 26 - May 1

🔪 Selection and cut out in PS 🔪

Selection

A selection is the area of an image that you define for manipulation of any kind, allowing you to isolate one or more parts of an image. You can make a selection with various selection tools, commands, and the Select and Mask workspace in Photoshop.

If you have multiple layers, first define the layer you want to make a selection and later manipulate it. Keep in mind that Select All (Command/Ctrl + "A") will select everything in your document and Deselect All (Command/Ctrl + "D") will deselect everything in your document.

There are three main categories for selection tools in PS:

Rectangular and Oval selections

The Rectangular/circular selections tools are used to make basic rectangular/cingular selections. Click on the area you want and drag to make a selection. If you want the same proportion selection (square or circle), press the Shift key as you’re dragging.

Free-form selections

The Lasso tool is for making free-form selections. The Polygonal Lasso tool is used to make straight-edged segments of a selection. It comes in handy to select objects with a straight edge.

Quick Selection

This set of tools the most fun category of working with selection tools! It is a fast and easy way to select the area you want! Under this category there are three tools:

Object Selection tool

You simply draw a rectangular region or a lasso around the object, the Object Selection tool automatically selects the object inside the defined region. The tool works better on well-defined objects than on regions without contrast.

Quick Selection tool

You can use the Quick Selection tool to quickly "paint" a selection using an adjustable round brush tip. As you drag, the selection expands outward and automatically finds and follows defined edges in the image. Hold the Shift key to add to the selection and hold the Alt key to remove from the selection.

Remove/replace small areas

This set of tools is good if you want to remove spots or small objects. I will tell you about the Patch Tool and leave the rest of the tools for you to explore more!

Patch Tool synthesizes nearby content for seamless blending with the surrounding content. Select an area to replace on the image (You can use the Patch tool to draw a selection, or use any of the other selection tools as well). Drag the selection over the area you want to generate a fill from.

Additional convenient techniques

There are tons of ways in PS that you can make selections and cut, remove, or replace a shape! The technique that you use is a matter of habit, speed, and convenience! Here are some different techniques you can try and see which one fits the best based on your need:

Mask out part of a layer based on the luminosity of pixels with Blend If!

Remove and replace part of an image with Content Aware!