Now it's time to learn how to use some of the tools in the
Photoshop toolbar.
Marquee Selection tools:
The following tools allow you to
select regions in your image to alter, copy, move, and apply filters.
Rectangular marquee tool: This is the default selection
setting. You can make a selection of any rectangular size and shape.
Elliptical marquee tool:
This tool, available when you click
and hold down on the selection tool region of the tool bar, selects elliptical
spaces. To select a round area, hold the shift key while clicking and dragging.
Single row: This tool will select a 1pixel region that is as
wide as your image. Very useful for trimming edges and making straight lines.
single column marquee tool:
Single column:
The tool will select a 1pixel region that is
as tall as your image. Also very useful for trimming edges and making straight
lines.
A Note on Selection Modes (in the options bar):
marquee tool styles
Normal mode allows you to drag the cursor to create the
selection size you want.
Constrained aspect ratio allows you to choose a scalable
rectangle, say with a width to height ratio of 1 to 2. The selection will grow
when you drag, but will remain the same shape.
Fixed Size/Fixed Aspect Ratio allows you to predetermine the
size, in pixels or a ratio, of the selection you will make. When you click with
fixed size selected, a selection box of the exact size you specified will
automatically appear. With fixed aspect ratio, you can make different-sized
selections of the same shape. This is a particularly helpful tool when cropping
images to a certain size or drawing identical boxes.
move tool
the move tool moves an entire layer at a time. When you have
selected this tool, click on a layer in the layer pane, and then click and drag
on the image. The current layer will move all at once. You can even move it
outside of the current image size. Don't worry, though, parts of an image that
move outside the borders still exist - they are just hidden. They will only be
cropped out if you flatten the image.
Lasso tools
The lasso selection tools are similar to the marquee tools,
except that the lasso tools give you ultimate freedom in terms of the shape of
your selection. There are three different lasso tools:
lasso toolLasso tool, which allows you to draw a selection
by dragging the cursor freehand. The selection will close itself
Polygon lasso tool
Polygon Lasso tool, which creates a
selection composed of straight lines that can be as short as one pixel. The
selection grows with each additional click. This tool is especially useful for
cutting out objects in an image to place on new backgrounds.
magnetic polygon lasso tool:Magnetic Polygon Lasso tool
works a little like a combination of the other two lasso tool. As you drag, the
selection maps to natural borders in the image. This is a useful tool when
dealing with well-defined and high-contrast images.
A note about lasso tool options: When extracting part of an
image from its background, the result will be choppy and rough around the edges
unless you adjust the feather value in the options bar. This fades the edges
you create and can smooth the region into its new background.
Magic Wand Tool
The magic wand tool is similar to the magnetic polygon lasso
tool except that rather than dragging to make a selection, you click in a
region and a selection appears around similar colored pixels. You can control
how similar pixels must be to be included in the selection by altering the
tolerance value.
This tool is useful for selecting monochromatic regions or
pieces of high-contrast images.
