Making Selections: 3 Ways to isolate an area in an image: Layer Mask : Mask the part of the layer you don t want to be visible

Transcription

1 3 Ways to isolate an area in an image: Layer Mask : Mask the part of the layer you don t want to be visible Eraser Tool: Erase the areas of an image or layer you don t want to be visible Make a Selection: Select the area of the image you want to isolate and copy and paste into a layer Making Selections: Selection Tools: Marquee tool: Draw a rectangular or circular selection Lasso Tools: Draw your own selection Smart Selection Tools: Smart selection tools - Photoshop automatically selects an area of pixels. When you click on a pixel, all pixels similar in shade around it are selected as well

2 Select your Marquee Selection Tool Basic Selections On your canvas/image draw a box. The area inside the marching ants is the selected area. Now you can cut, copy, or paste this selected area on another canvas or on top of itself. In your Photoshop menu: Go to EDIT --> Copy To paste the selection on another image: Select the other image and go to EDIT --> Paste

3 Magic Wand The Magic Wand is a smart selection tool. When you use it, an area of the image with similar pixel values is selected when you click on the image. Below I used the Magic Wand and clicked on one point in the sky and the whole sky was selected. Below are the Options available when you are using the Magic Wand. Notice the Tolerance area. You can change this number to a lower or higher value. The higher the Tolerance, the more pixel values (and thus pixels) will be selected. The lower the Tolerance, the less pixels will be selected. The Magic Wand is one of two useful Smart Selection Tools. The other is the Quick Selection Tool. This tool is like a combination of a paint brush and the Magic Wand tool. Experiment with both tools and their options in combination with other techniques to make selections.

4 Painting Selections - Quick Mask Mode The Quick Mask Mode is a way to paint or refine your selections. It is located on the bottom of the Tool pallete. Once you have made a rough selection with the Marquee or other selection tool: 1. Click the Quick Mask Mode button on the bottom of the Tool palette. When you enter this mode, the area outside the selection will be represented by red. (See image) 2. Select the Paint Brush 3. Now you can paint more red or erase the red. 4. To paint more red- select black in your Color Selector 5. To erase the red area, select white in your Color Selector Now when you exit Quick Mask Mode (by clicking the button again) the refined selection can be seen (denoted by dashed lines)

5 Layers After you make a selection, when you copy and paste an area of the image it becomes its own Layer or object that can be independently edited and moved within the image. The order of the layers in the list represent the order of the layers in the image. For example, the top layer will show to be on top of the other layers in the image. The order can be changed by simply clicking and dragging to move them around in the palette. In the examples here, I copy and pasted selections from one image and pasted them onto another image. Opacity: you can set the level of transparency for each layer here Selected or Active Layer: the layer that you are currently editing. Any changes you make will only apply to this layer. Add Layer Mask Deletes the selected layer

6 Layer Masks One important tool is the Layer Mask. With this tool, you can paint on a mask to hide the unwanted areas of the Layer. Unlike the eraser, this does not permantlly delete anything but can be edited later when you reopen the file Here I have an image with a layer I want to mask. To do so: 1. Select the layer in the Layers Palette 2. Click the Add Layer Mask button at the bottom of the Layers Palette (see diagram on the previous page). Notice there is now a white box next to the layer (See diagram on the right): 3. Now make sure the Layer Mask is selected (not the layer itself). Notice the black line around the layer mask in the diagram on the right: 4. Select the Paint Brush and pick black as your color 5. Begin painting on the image where you want to mask