Explore the intricacies of selection tools used for image editing. Learn how to use different tools like the rectangular marquee tool, the elliptical marquee tool, and single row/column marquee tool, and how they can be employed to edit and modify image elements.
Key Insights
- The rectangular and elliptical marquee tools are fundamental selection tools used for creating rectangular or elliptical selections within an image. Holding down the shift key while dragging can create perfect squares or circles.
- Selection tools come with several options like creating new selections, adding to existing selections, subtracting from selections, and intersecting with current selections. These options provide flexibility for various editing tasks.
- Feathering is a useful feature when you want a smooth transition between selected and non-selected areas. It creates a fading effect around the selection which can be ideal for images that don't have precise edges.
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In this video we'll be going over selection tools. Let's start by opening our file and for this video we'll be working outside of lesson 2, instead selecting crane hook jpeg.
As we can see we have a crane hook in front of a blue sky background. Throughout this video we'll be removing this hook from the background behind it and going over selection tools. So as always let's start first by dragging our background into new layer and we'll retitle this layer hook removed and hit ENTER and next we'll retitle our background layer hook original and lock this layer.
In addition we'll hide the hook original layer so that it doesn't show through when we remove the blue background. Finally let's select our hook removed layer. Selection tools can be helpful in selecting different objects or different pieces of our image.
They can be found in the tools bar within the first three icons. So let's begin. We'll start first with our rectangular marquee tool.
The rectangular marquee tool essentially works the same way as the rectangle tool where if you click and drag you'll make a rectangle or if you hold shift we'll make a square. Therefore let's release our click and we can see from this dashed border that this is our selection. All of the pixels inside follow into the selection.
If we want to create a new selection we can simply click and make a new selection somewhere else. Each time we click we'll lose our current selection. Since we want to remove the blue background from this image we can hit delete on our keyboard and we've now deleted the pixels with inside the rectangle.
To deselect we'll hit CTRL D on the keyboard and we can move on through new selection tools. Next let's hold the rectangular marquee tool and select the elliptical marquee tool found in the tools gallery. The elliptical marquee tool works in the same way as the rectangular marquee tool where if we click and drag we'll make a selection.
In addition let's talk about some of the options for our elliptical marquee tool and selection tools. The first thing we'll see selected is our new selection is highlighted. This means that each time we click we'll create a new selection.
In addition if we select our next option add to selection from our options bar each time we click and drag we will continue adding to our selection. If we check the next one subtract from selection each time we click and drag we will subtract from the selection we've made. And finally our last option is to intersect with selection.
If we click and drag we'll see that it creates the intersect from our new selection and our previous selection. Let's go back to new selection and we'll create a new selection. Next let's discuss feathering.
Currently our feathering is zero meaning that there's a specific line where a pixel is either inside or outside of the selection. With feathering we essentially fade between being selected and not selected. For example if we replace the zero with 50 pixels and hit ENTER and now if we create a new selection and hit delete CTRL D on the keyboard to deselect we'll see that the feathering shows that it's fading between the selection.
If we zoom in we'll see that it has a fade effect or a feathering effect around our selection. This can be helpful when you don't have precise edges for your selection and you want to fade into the selection. Let's zoom back out and we'll move on to the other two options.
Our last two options in these tool gallery are a single row marquee tool and single column marquee tool. If we click we'll see that we have a line on our image and if we release it seems as though the line has vanished but if we zoom in we can see that the line is still there. Our single row marquee tool selects only one line of pixels therefore if we delete it and hit CTRL D we'll see that that line of pixels has vanished.
Let's hit CTRL Z to keep those pixels in our image and zoom back out. Finally let's save our work going to file save as and we'll type crane hook removed making sure it's a photoshop file and click save and okay. In the next video we'll continue going through selection tools and removing our crane hook from our blue background.
See you there!