Teach Yourself Photoshop 4 in 14 Days -- Ch 2 -- Selections: Editing and Manipulating Images






Teach Yourself Photoshop 4 in 14 Days







- 2 -
Selections: Editing and Manipulating Images

Now that you have learned how easy it is to move images into and out of Photoshop,
we need to begin to learn how to edit them. This is accomplished in large degree
with selections.
Selections are just what they seem to be--portions of the image that you have
selected. There are several ways of making selections. You can use the Marquee
tools, the Lasso tools, and the Magic Wand. By using the Marquee tools, you can create
selections as seen in Figure 2.1. These selections then can be cut out of images,
copied, moved, rotated, and much more.





NOTE: You also can create selections with
Paths, but that discussion has been reserved for Day 8, "Layers."





It is important to remember that when you are dealing with selections, for better
or for worse, only the area within the confines of the marquee may be edited. It
is, in a sense, the only active area of the canvas. Thus, after a selection is made,
you can perform whatever action you desire, but before you move on, the selection
must be turned off, or deselected, by clicking outside of your selection with
the Marquee tool. Until you do so, you can only edit within the selection's boundaries.
Figure 2.1
A marquee selection.





NOTE: Deselection is easy to forget. You
make a selection, modify it, and then expect to be able to move on to another part
of the image, but you can't--not until you deselect the selected area. You can save
yourself a trip to the Toolbox by just typing "M." This will activate the
Marquee tool. Click once and you are ready to move onto your next task. Consult Appendix
A for a full list of Toolbox shortcuts.





For the next few pages, let's turn our attention to the powerful Marquee tools.
The Marquee Tools
The Marquee tools, Elliptical and Rectangular, are found in the upper left corner
of the Toolbox (see Figures 2.2 and 2.3). These tools are so important to most Photoshop
users that they are, at least the Rectangular one, selected by default when the application
is opened.


To swap back and forth between the Marquee tools and the Crop tool, you can click
and hold on the tool. A selection will roll-out and you will be able to select the
desired tool. You also can select the different Marquee tools in the options palette
drop-down menu (Window+Show Options).


Figure 2.2
The Rectangular Marquee tool.
Figure 2.3
The Elliptical Marquee tool.
You also can, given that the Rectangular marquee is the currently selected tool,
type "M" to switch back and forth between the two. The Elliptical Marquee
tool works the same way that the Rectangular Marquee tool does (see Figure 2.4).
Figure 2.4
An elliptical shaped marquee.
To experiment with its many uses, first create a new file (see Day 1 if you can't
remember how). Again, give yourself some room to work. Set the dimensions at five
inches square.


1. Click the Marquee tool in the Toolbox.

2. Move the tool over the canvas--the cursor will appear as a crosshair.

3. While over the canvas, click and hold the mouse button.

4. Drag out a marquee. Experiment with dragging out an elliptical marquee. Try to
get a sense for how they appear. Try dragging from different directions.


Moving a Marquee
Selections are set up to be moved where ever you want to put them. Move your cursor
into the boundaries of the selection. A small box will appear next to the cursor.
This indicates that you may move your selection. Click and hold inside of the selection.
While still holding, move the mouse. The selection can be moved where ever you desire.
Now that you have learned the basics of selections, we will discuss other ways
of manipulating them. These are accomplished by pressing certain keys while you click
and move the mouse. These are called modifier keys, which will be discussed
in the next section.
Modifier Keys for the Marquee Tools
Modifier keys are time-savers and then some. By simply pressing a key, you can
modify the behavior of your tool. You can, for example, cut, subtract from, and add
to marquees. These keys will save you time, as well as provide advanced control over
how you use marquees--they can be a lot more than just squares and circles.
Modifier keys will work with either of the Marquee tools as well as both Lasso
tools, which we will discuss in just a few pages.
Multiple Selections (Additive Marquees)
First, notice that as you move the marquee cursor outside of a selected area it
appears as a crosshair ready to make another selection. If, however, you click to
make another selection, the original selection disappears, but this is easily avoided.
Just as in other applications, to make multiple selections you must hold Shift while
you drag (see Figure 2.5). Observe that as you press the Shift key a small (+) sign
appears in your cursor. This is what I call an additive marquee. It enables
you to add multiple marquees.
Figure 2.5
Making multiple selections.
Subtracting from Selections
Photoshop also provides the capability to subtract from marquees. Drag out a marquee
and then press the Alt key. Notice that a small (-) sign appears in your cursor.
Drag, while still holding Alt, into the space occupied by the first selection (see
Figures 2.6 and 2.7).





NOTE: This is as good a time as any to
remind you of the power and well-designed interface of Photoshop. If you can do something,
such as make a selection, for instance, you can not only undo it, but you can also
do the opposite--that is, what you can't do with Photoshop probably isn't worth doing.
There is just not enough space in one book to cover all of the workings of this robust
software, but use your imagination. Don't be afraid to try a logical modifier key.
Check the help system under the Help menu.
If you can imagine it, there is a very good chance that Photoshop can do it.





Figure 2.6
First selection.
Figure 2.7
Subtracting from a marquee.
Cutting Selections
There are two ways that you can cut selections. You can use the Edit+Cut command
or you can press Ctrl (Option for Macs). Note the appearance of tiny scissors in
your cursor.


1. Open file 02file01 on the CD-ROM (see Figure 2.8).


Figure 2.8
Before cutting.


2. Drag an elliptical marquee within the sphere.

3. With Ctrl pressed, click once.

4. Now, still holding Ctrl, move your cursor.

5. Moving the cursor reveals the image's black background (see Figure 2.9).


Figure 2.9
Dragging the cut selection. Note the dark background revealed by moving the selection.
Remember to hold the Ctrl key during the whole operation. If you had any trouble,
open 02file02 from the CD-ROM to see the finished image.
Dragging a Marquee from the Center Out
By now, you'll notice that the marquee drags out in the direction you pull the
mouse. If you move to the right and down, the marquee follows suit. There is another
option, however. By holding Alt (Option on Macintosh), the marquee pulls away from
the direction you drag. Therefore, if you drag to the right and down, the marquee
expands with an equivalent move to the left and up (see Figure 2.10).
Figure 2.10
Dragging a selection while holding Alt or Option.
Marquee Tool Options
For more advanced control over the Marquee tools, double-click the marquee tool
button in the Toolbox or select Window+Show Options (see Figure 2.11).
Figure 2.11
The Marquee tool options.
In the Shape drop-down menu, you can select Elliptical or Rectangular, the same
as from the Toolbox, but there are two other available options: Single Row and Single
Column. These options enable you to select a single row or column of pixels. Other
than that, they cannot be taller or wider, respectively, than a single pixel; they
behave just as the other marquee options. They can be stroked, filled, and so on.
(Stroking, filling, and many other options will be discussed in just a few pages.)
In the Styles drop-down menu, there are two options. Simply put, the Constrained
Aspect Ratio means that you define, by entering height and width values, how the
marquee will appear. If you enter 10 for height and 1 as width, as I have done in
Figure 2.12, you will end up with a marquee that is 10 times taller than it is wide--1
width to 10 height.
Figure 2.12
Note the consistency in the width to height ratio of 1:10.
The Fixed Size option enables you to define a size for the marquee. Enter 72 by
72 and you will have the exact size for selecting one square inch of monitor real
estate.
Feathering Selections
Feathering is a term that indicates a slight blurring. It is a great technique
to use when you want to avoid sharp edges or abrupt color changes.
You can feather selections by specifying a desired amount in the Marquee options
palette. Figure 2.13 demonstrates a feather of 5, 10, and 15 from left to right.
You won't see any evidence of feathering in the marquee itself beyond a rounding
of the corners. The higher the number you enter as the feather radius, the more rounded
the corners become. Feathering only takes place after you fill the selected area,
because it is a gradual lightening of pixels. For a deeper look at feathering, read
on. It is covered in the following section, "The Lasso Tools."
If you prefer not to specify a general feather size in the Marquee tool options
palette, you can feather individual selections differently by selecting Select+Feather.
In this dialog box, you can set the feather size up to 250 pixels (see Figure 2.14).
The Lasso Tools
As useful as the Marquee tools and their modifier keys are, there will come times
when you will have to select irregular shapes. Perhaps you might need to select a
person out of a crowd, or as in this example, a flower, with all of its irregularly
shaped petals (see Figure 2.15).
You can go about this in two ways. The first is more difficult up front. You can
either painstakingly follow the outline of the flower with the Lasso tool (which
is difficult, but if you can do it, that's great). The other option is for those
of us with unsteady hands or impatient brains. Photoshop has taken us into consideration
also. Go ahead and make a less precise selection. We'll learn how to fix that later
today in a special section devoted to the Magic Wand tool.





NOTE: I've found that when I am trying
to make a very careful selection with the Lasso tool, and when I am using Photoshop
in general, it helps to slow my mouse down. You can adjust this in the mouse section
of your machine's Control Panels.





In the following tutorial, you will learn you to cut the flower out of its original
image and place it into a new image with feathering (or softening) of the edges:


1. Open the file 02file03 on the CD-ROM (see Figure 2.16).


Figure 2.16
The flower.


2. Select the Zoom tool and drag a marquee around the outer edge of the flower,
or type 300% (more or less to your own liking) into the left of the status bar (see
Figure 2.17).


Figure 2.17
The flower magnified; Lasso tool selected.


3. Select the Lasso tool from the Toolbox.

4. Click and carefully drag the Lasso tool around the image. Be careful not to release
the mouse. If you do, you will lose the marquee (it will automatically close the
selection). Note that the marquee selection appears at the bottom of the rope. Don't
be distracted by the rest of the lasso--it is only that point of the rope that you
need to worry about.

When you get near to where you began you marquee selection, a small circle will appear
in your cursor. This indicates that you can release your mouse button and close the
selection (see Figure 2.18).


Figure 2.18
The flower selected.


5. Select Edit+Copy. This gives you a version of the image without ruining the
first by cutting.

6. Select File+New. All of the dimension settings will be correct. Any time you cut
or copy a piece of an image and then create a new canvas, the canvas is already sized
precisely to accommodate that image that you have selected.

7. In the New File dialog box, do make certain to click Transparent in the
contents box (the transparency is denoted by a checkerboard effect in the background).

8. Select Edit+Paste.


If you want to have a look at the actual finished file as depicted in Figure 2.19,
open file 02file04 from the CD-ROM.
Figure 2.19
Flower cut and pasted in new document.
Feathering Lasso Selections
Now, try the same technique, only this time let's feather the Lasso tool.


1. Go back to the original flower, 02file03.

2. If it is still selected, click somewhere outside of the selection to deselect.

3. Double-click the Lasso tool in the Toolbox. This invokes the Lasso tool options
palette (see Figure 2.20).


Figure 2.20
The Lasso tool options palette.


4. Enter 10 into the feather box. Leave anti-aliased checked for smoothness.

5. Now, using the Lasso tool, select the flower just as you did before, if somewhat
less precisely.

6. Select Edit+Copy

7. Select File+New. Check White in the Contents section

8. Select Edit+Paste (see Figure 2.21).


Figure 2.21
The feathered selection.

Notice the softly feathered edges of your selection. It adds a nice touch, and really
isn't difficult at all. Try other settings for the Feather radius. Try unchecking
the anti-alias box. (See the following note for more information on anti-aliasing.)
Open 02file04 to see the actual result. Remember this feathering technique, we'll
use it again later when we work with collages on Day 8.





NOTE: Anti-aliasing creates smooth edges
or transitions in images by interpolating pixels. If you recall the images back in
the Introduction that depicted singular pixels, you'll remember that pixels are square,
which makes for jagged edges on any curved edge. Anti-aliasing smoothes these "jaggies"
by calculating median pixel percentages and median colors and applying these to the
edges.
Don't take my word for it. Zoom in close to the edge of a flower petal. Notice
how, up close, there are no sharp edges. The pixels blend, over an extremely small
space, the color of the flower and the color of the background. This is anti-aliasing,
and at normal magnification, contributes to more realistic-looking images.





The Polygon Lasso Tool
The Polygon Lasso tool behaves in much the same way as the regular Lasso tool
(see Figure 2.22). The difference is, as its name implies, it makes irregular geometric
selections. For rough cuts, this is the tool to consider.


1. Click the Lasso tool and hold until you see the roll-out menu (or type "L").

2. Select the Polygon tool.

3. Create a new file. Give yourself some room to work, because we will use your work
in this tutorial in the next section.

4. Click once in the canvas. Now drag your mouse. Notice that a line follows your
Polygon Lasso wherever you move it.

5. Click again. This draws the first line and sets another point from which you may
drag.

6. At this point, with two points set, you have an option. You can either continue
to select the image or you can press Ctrl and click. This automatically finishes
the selection for you.


Figure 2.22
The Polygon Lasso tool.

Figure 2.23
Creating a selection with the Polygon Lasso tool.


7. For our purposes, continue to select the image.

8. When you near your starting point, notice that a small circle becomes appended
to your cursor. This signals that if you click the selection will be complete.

9. Click to complete your selection.


Before you click anywhere else, wait. We will use this selection you have created
in the following tutorials, which will demonstrate how to fill selections with color,
stroke the out perimeters, and alter them using the Transformation commands.
Manipulating Selections
So far, we have only dealt with creating selections, which is indeed an important
part of understanding Photoshop, but now we will explore some of the ways you can
really put selections to work.
Selections can be filled with color as well as other images, their outlines can
be stroked, and they can be twisted into new shapes with the Transformation
commands. Let's start by filling your selections.
Filling Selections
An active selection can be filled with color or another image or texture. First,
let's try filling with a color:


1. Either use the selection that you created in the last section or create a
new one.

2. Next, select Edit+Fill. The Fill dialog box will appear (see Figure 2.24) where
you can select what is to be filled (see Figure 2.25).


Figure 2.24
The Fill dialog box.
Figure 2.25
Options in the Fill dialog box.

Figure 2.26
Background and foreground colors in the toolbox.


3. Select Foreground Color and click OK.


Your selection should fill with whatever foreground color (probably black) is
specified in the toolbox. (We'll cover selecting colors tomorrow when we enter the
discussion of painting and drawing. For now, it is OK to just use the defaults--but
you are always welcome to skip ahead.)
A number of different options are available to you in the Fill dialog box. Obviously,
you can also can fill a selection with the background color or fill selections with
percentages of color. Let's experiment with this and some of the techniques you learned
earlier today.





NOTE: Press Ctrl/Delete to fill a selection
with the background color.
Alt/Delete fills a selection with the foreground color (see Figure 2.27).







1. First, create a new file.

2. With the Rectangular Marquee selected, drag out a square marquee.

3. Now, select Edit+Fill and choose foreground color.


Figure 2.27
A selection filled with the foreground color.


4. Hit OK.

5. Select the Elliptical Marquee tool. (Either type "M" or click the Marquee
tool button until the roll-out menu appears.)

6. Drag out a circular marquee within the black square.

7. Select Edit+Fill.

8. In the Fill dialog box, select background color and set the Opacity to 50% (see
Figure 2.28).


Figure 2.28
The Fill dialog box.


9. Click OK. You should see something like the image in Figure 2.29.


Figure 2.29
A circular selection filled with 50% opacity of white--gray.

Setting the opacity to 50% enables 50% of the black background to show through the
white. You should end up with a gray circle.
Keep the circle selected and we will try another technique. This one involves
using a subtractive marquee.


1. With your circle still selected, press Ctrl and drag a selection as shown
in Figure 2.30.


Figure 2.30
Making a subtractive selection by pressing Ctrl.


2. Release the modifier key and mouse. Notice that the shape of the marquee has
become like that of a crescent moon.

3. Select Edit+Fill.

4. This time, fill your selection with the background color at 100% opacity (see
Figures 2.31 and 2.32).


Figure 2.31
The Fill dialog box with Background Color at 100% opacity.
Figure 2.32
Filling the subtractive selection.
As you can see, filling a subtractive selection ends up filling whatever selection
you have "cut into," so to speak. Thus, if you created a circle, and then
created a subtractive selection within the circle, when you filled the subtractive
circle you would actually be filling the area between the two circles (see Figure
2.33 and 2.34).
Figure 2.33
How the circle appears at first (a 50% background).
Figure 2.34
Filling the subtractive selection.




NOTE: Another way to manipulate your selected
areas is to select Select+Inverse. This reverses your selection.

Say for instance you wanted to highlight a central point in an image by fading the
surrounding areas. You could drag a marquee (probably a feathered one) around the
focal point and then choose Select+Inverse. That way everything but what fell within
the original marquee becomes selected. Fill with a color at a low opacity setting
and you can really direct the viewer's eye.




Selections, however, can be filled with more than just background and foreground
colors. They can be filled with images, too.
In this exercise, we will create a selection in the velvet image where we can
paste the glass image (see Figure 2.35).
Figure 2.35
Glass and Velvet.


1. Open the file 02file05 and 02file06 from the CD-ROM.

2. Click in the velvet image to make it the active window.



NOTE: To copy the entire area of an image, you
can either drag a marquee around the whole canvas or choose Select+All.



3. Double-click the Marquee tool to bring up the Marquee options palette. Enter a
number in the Feather radius box. I chose 10, but you can go higher or lower if you
wish.

4. Make a horizontal selection across the velvet, select Edit+Copy.

5. Now click in 02file05.

6. Drag out a rectangular shaped marquee across the glass image (try to keep your
selection within the panes for the final effect). Until you create a marquee in the
receiving image, the Paste Into command will not be available. It has to have the
marquee.

7. Select Edit+Paste Into (see Figure 2.36).


Figure 2.36
The velvet pasted into the glass image.

The Paste Into with a selection is a great way to add textures to objects. This image,
however, lacks a smooth transition between the glass and the velvet. The feather
helps, but it doesn't quite do the trick. We will take a look at making images look
realistic on Day 6, "Moving Pixel Paint."





NOTE: For those of you who might be curious,
note the Layer options palette Window+Show Layers. In the thumbnail image, you can
see that the original image and the image we added occupy different layers. These
layers, as we will explore on Day 8, are enormously beneficial for compositing and
combining images. They enable you to keep each image you add on its own, separately
editable, layer.
Therefore, if you make a mistake, you can simply throw that layer away without
interfering with the rest of your project.





Stroking Selections
Now that you know how to fill selections, stroking selections will seem easy,
and it is. Stroking a selection merely means outlining it. If you want to create
the outline of a circle of square or crescent moon (using the subtractive marquee
we discussed in the last section), all you have to do is select Edit+Stroke (see
Figure 2.37).
Figure 2.37
The Stroke dialog box.
If your marquee has rounded edges, it is because you haven't reset the Feathering
radius from the last tutorial. I suggest you return the value to 0.
You can select the width of the outline, whether you want it to fall inside, directly
on, or outside of the marquee, as well as the blending mode and opacity (see Figure
2.38).





NOTE: Remember, the stroke will always
appear as whatever color you have selected as your foreground color. (See Day 3,
"Painting and Drawing Tools" for more information on selecting color.)






Figure 2.38
Stroked marquees.
Transforming Selections
This is the final section on selections. We won't see them again until they pop
back up on Day 8 when we will discuss how to save and load them to various effects.
For the moment, however, we are going to deal with transforming selections with
the commands found under the Layer menu--Free Transform and Transform. First, let's
take a look at the Free Transform command.
Free Transform
Free Transform, found under the Layer menu, is the workhorse of the transform
commands--at least as they apply to two-dimensional transformations. It adds control
points to the marquee, which can be manipulated by clicking and dragging (see Figures
2.39 and 2.40).
Figure 2.39
Notice the control points.
Figure 2.40
An image rotated with the Free Transform command. You can see the background color
peeking through.





NOTE: The images used in this tutorial
can be found on the CD-ROM--02file07, 02file08, and 02file09.





Marquees, and whatever image is contained within their boundaries, can be squeezed,
stretched, and rotated into an infinite number of positions.
To make your transformations stick, click the toolbox. You will be prompted with
the following dialog box as to whether you want apply the transformation. When you
are satisfied, click Apply.





NOTE: If you Apply the transformation only to
discover it is not what you wanted after all, click Edit+Undo before you take another
step. After that, it is permanent--unless you choose File+Revert, which takes you
back to the last saved version.





The Transformation Commands
Most of the Layer+Transform commands are easily accessible and intuitive. If you
want to scale your image, up or down, select the Scale command. To rotate the image,
you can select the Rotate command or you can rotate by a numeric value--Rotate 180
degrees or 90 degrees CW or CCW (clockwise or counter-clockwise).
There are, however, several transformation commands that aren't as obvious. The
first I would like to discuss is the Skew command.
Skewing Selections
The Skew command found under Layer+Transform+Skew enables you to twist your selection
in a number of ways (see Figure 2.41 and 2.42). Just click the control points and
manipulate the selection. Click in the toolbox to apply the setting.
Figure 2.41
Skewing a selection.
Figure 2.42
Another option for skewing.
Distorting Selections All the transformation tools operate very similarly.
They possess subtle differences in how they can move the selection. The Distort command,
Layer+Transform+Distort, moves something like the Scale command, but instead of changing
the size of the image, it crushes of stretches the image (see Figures 2.43 and 2.44).
Figure 2.43
Distorting a selection.
sFigure 2.44
Another option for distorting.
Changing the Perspective of a Selection This is one of my favorite tools
in the Photoshop arsenal. When you want to create an image that appears to diminish
in the distance, the Perspective command can't be beat. Its movement is completely
intuitive. The opposite corner of the one you drag becomes a mirror image--when you
pull away, it moves away. When you move in, it, too, follows suit (see Figures 2.45
and 2.46). We'll see this tool again on Day 11, "Actions," when we work
on creating 3-D images.
Figure 2.45
Using the Perspective command.
Figure 2.46
Another use of the Perspective command (with 02file05 from the CD).
Numeric Transformations This is probably the least intuitive of all the
transformation tools, because instead of handles appearing on your selection which
you can then drag, this offers a dialog box in which you can enter numeric values
for the position, the scale, the skew, and rotation (see Figure 2.47).
Figure 2.47
The Numeric Transformations dialog box.
This is a great option for those of you lucky enough to be able to see numbers
in your mind's eye. For the rest of us, we'll have to muddle along with the other
tools, grateful once again that Adobe hasn't left anyone out.
The Magic Wand--Making Selections Based on Pixel Values
The software designers at Adobe Systems must not have been able to come up with
a more descriptive name for this fantastic tool, choosing instead to let it, perhaps,
speak for itself--the Magic Wand. Maybe it's better that way.
Figure 2.48
The Magic Wand.
The Magic Wand is another variety of selection tool. So far we've looked at tools
that select pixels based on their placement in the bitmap (the picture). The Magic
Wand selects pixels somewhat differently; it selects them based on values. This enables
you to cut foreground objects, such as the flower you see in Figure 2.49, out of
its background.
Figure 2.49
A flower.
Because the background is all relatively the same color, the Magic Wand tool can
work wonders. For an image with a more involved background, you would be better off
using the Lasso tools, and then going to work with the Magic Wand.
The Wand is capable of selecting adjacent pixels based on color similarities.
Its sensitivity or tolerance to color differences can be set in the options palette,
shown in Figure 2.50. To open the Magic Wand options palette, either double-click
the Magic Wand in the Toolbox or simply select it and then choose Window+Show Options.
Figure 2.50
The Magic Wand options palette.
The rule is easy to remember: the lower the Tolerance, the less tolerance the
Magic Wand has for color differences. Thus, for example, if you set the Tolerance
higher (and it ranges from 0 to 255), it will select all varieties of the color upon
which you initially select.
The Magic Wand is great for removing skies and such, or focusing on central foci
that sharply stand out from their backgrounds, but for selecting a face in the crowd
it is terrible.
Figure 2.51
Background selections made with the Magic Wand.
Let's use the Magic Wand tool to select the flower and remove it from its background:


1. Open the file 02file10 from the CD-ROM.

2. Select the Magic Wand tool.

3. You may change the tolerance if you wish, but I left it at its default 32.

4. Click in the background of the image.

5. As you can see, the selection is blocked by the flower's petals.

6. Press the Shift key and select again. Do so until the entire background has been
selected.

7. Select Edit+Cut.


This should remove most of the background, but as you can see in Figure 2.52,
a few pixels are left behind. Repeat the process described in the preceding steps,
and then use the Eraser tool to clean up what is left behind (see files 02file11
and 02file12 on the CD-ROM for the uncleaned and cleaned up versions of the flower).
To use the Eraser tool, simply select it from the toolbox (the icon looks like
an artgum eraser), and drag it over the unwanted artifacts, or junk, leftover
in your image.





NOTE: Artifacts is a groovy term used
to describe junk that is found in scanned images (dust and stuff on the scanner)
or stuff that is left over from selections that don't get everything.





Figure 2.52
Cleaning up with the Eraser tool.
To work with the Eraser tool, you might want to increase the magnification of
the image. This enables you to erase with greater precision.





NOTE: You can adjust the size of the Eraser
tool by selecting Window+Show Brushes (with the Eraser tool selected in the Toolbox).
The Brushes palette services the size needs of not only the Paint Brushes, but of
all the tools in the second segment in the Toolbox (see Appendix B). If you need
a smaller eraser, just click a smaller brush. An outline will appear around the selected
brush. For more information on brushes, see Day 3.





Another way to address the situation of extracting the flower from its background
involves selecting the flower with the Magic Wand tool.


1. Open file 02file10.

2. Again, select the background, using the Shift key to continue the selections around
the petals.

3. When you have selected the entire background, select Select+Inverse. This will
reverse the selection, so instead of removing the background it will remove the flower
(see Figure 2.53).


Figure 2.53
Inverted Selection.


4. Select Edit+Cut.

5. You will see something resembling Figure 2.54.


Figure 2.54
The flower removed from the background.


6. Create a new file (File+New) and make sure to make the background Transparent
(at the bottom of the New File dialog box).

7. Select Edit+Paste. Your flower will appear.


It looks pretty good but could use some cleaning with the Eraser tool, which will
be discussed tomorrow. If you want, you can save your file with another name or simply
close it, and you are done for the day.
Summary
Some of the most powerful tools in Photoshop are the selection tools. They enable
you to edit selectively as well as create interesting effects with the Transformation
tools.
Today you learned how to make selections, feather selections, and cut and paste
selections. We reviewed the tools you will need, and learned some of the most basic,
and most important, skills in Photoshop.
Try to develop a feel for when you can use selections. They can save you a great
deal of time when you need to fill a space with color or image, when you need to
manipulate just a piece of an image, or when you need to extract a piece of an image
from a larger work.
We will refer to selections throughout the remainder of the book, so it you need
to, bend a page back. See you tomorrow.








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