Oreilly Photoshop CS5 The Missing Manual_1 ppt

137  : :     Selection Basics Figure 4-1: To let you know an area is selected, Photoshop surrounds it with tiny, moving dashes that look like marching ants. Here you can see the ants running around the armadillo. (FYI, the nine-banded armadillo is the state animal of Texas. Aren’t you glad you bought this book?) Here are the commands you’ll use most often when you make selections: • Select All. This command selects your whole document and places marching ants around the perimeter, which is helpful when you want to copy and paste an entire image into another program or create a border around a photo (see page 183). To run this command, go to Select➝All or press �-A (Ctrl+A on a PC). • Deselect. To get rid of the marching ants after you’ve finished working with the selection, choose Select➝Deselect or press �-D (Ctrl+D). Alternatively, if you’ve got one of the selection tools activated in the Tools panel, you can click once outside the selection to get rid of your selection. • Reselect. To resurrect your last selection, choose Select➝Reselect or press �-Shift-D (Ctrl-Shift-D). This command reactivates the last selection you made, even if it was five filters and 20 brushstrokes ago (unless you’ve used the Crop and Type tools, which render the Reselect command powerless). Reselect- ing is helpful if you accidentally deselect a selection you’ve been working on for a long time. (The Undo command [�-Z or Ctrl+Z] can also help you in that situation.) • Inverse. This command, which you run by going to Select➝Inverse or pressing �-Shift-I (Ctrl-Shift-I), lets you flip-flop a selection to select everything you didn’t select before. You’ll often find it easier to select what you don’t want and then inverse the selection to get what you do want (see the box on page 155). • Load a layer as a selection. When talking to people about Photoshop, you’ll often hear the phrase “load as a selection,” which is (unavoidable) Photoshop- speak for activating a layer that contains the object you want to work with and then summoning the marching ants so they run around that object; that way, 138 P CS: T M M Selecting by Shape whatever you do next affects only that object. To load everything that lives on a single editable layer as a selection, mouse over to the Layers panel and �-click (Ctrl+click) the layer’s thumbnail (page 78); you don’t need to have the layer selected. Photoshop responds by putting marching ants around everything on that layer. Alternatively, you can Ctrl-click (right-click on a PC) the layer’s thumbnail and then choose Select Pixels from the resulting shortcut menu. Tip: Although you can find most of the commands in this list in the Select menu at the top of your screen (except for loading a layer as a selection), you should memorize their keyboard shortcuts if you want to be smokin’ fast in Photoshop. These next three items live in the Select menu, but they don’t actually call up march- ing ants. Instead, they tell Photoshop to select entire layers (for the lowdown on layers, see Chapter 3): • All Layers. Use this command if you want to select every layer in your docu- ment (so you can move several layers at once, for example). To select all layers, choose Select➝All Layers or press �-Option-A (Ctrl+Alt+A). • Deselect Layers. This command does the exact opposite of the previous one: It deselects all the layers in your Layers panel, leaving nary a layer highlighted. To run it, choose Select➝Deselect Layers. • Similar Layers. Choose this command if you want to select all layers of the same kind (page 76 lists the different types of layers). For example, say you want to change the font in all the Type layers in your document. Just select a Type layer and then choose Select➝Similar. Photoshop selects all your Type layers and highlights them in the Layers panel so you can modify them all at once. (See Chapter 14 for more on Type layers.) Tip: When you move objects around with the Move tool, you can enlist Photoshop’s help in selecting individual layers by turning on Auto-Select in the Options bar. With this setting on, as you click an object in your document, Photoshop tries to guess which layer it’s on and select that layer for you. Now it’s time to discuss the tools you can use to make selections. Photoshop has a ton of ’em, so in the next several pages, you’ll find them grouped according to which kind of selections they’re best at making. Selecting by Shape Selections based on shape are probably the easiest ones to make. Whether the object you need to grab is rectangular, elliptical, or rectangular with rounded corners, Pho- toshop has just the tool for you. You’ll use the first couple of tools described in this section often, so think of them as your bread and butter when it comes to making selections. 139  : :     Selecting by Shape The Rectangular and Elliptical Marquee Tools Photoshop’s most basic selection tools are the Rectangular and Elliptical Marquees. Anytime you need to make a selection that’s squarish or roundish, reach for these little helpers, which live at the top of the Tools panel, as shown in Figure 4-2. Figure 4-2: You’ll spend loads of time making selections with the Rectangular and Elliptical Marquee tools. To summon this pop-up menu, click the second item from the top of the Tools panel and hold down your mouse button until the menu appears. To make a selection with either marquee tool, just grab the tool by clicking its icon in the Tools panel or by pressing M and then mouse over to your document. When your cursor turns into a tiny + sign, drag across the area you want to select (you’ll see the marching ants appear as soon as you start to drag). Photoshop starts the selec- tion where you clicked and continues it in the direction you drag as long as you hold down the mouse button. When you’ve got marching ants around the area you want to select, release the mouse button. You can use a variety of tools and techniques to modify your selection, most of which you can find in the Options bar (Figure 4-3). For example, you can: • Move the selection. Click anywhere within the selected area and drag to an- other part of your document (your cursor turns into a tiny arrow) to move the selection where you want it. Tip: You can move a selection as you’re drawing it by moving your mouse while pressing the mouse button and the space bar. When you’ve got the selection where you want it, release the space bar and continue drawing the selection. • Add to the selection. When you click the “Add to selection” button in the Op- tions bar (see Figure 4-3) or press and hold the Shift key, Photoshop puts a tiny + sign beneath your cursor to let you know it’ll add whatever you select to your current selection. This mode is handy when you’ve selected most of what you want but notice that you missed a spot. Instead of starting over, you can switch to this mode and draw around that area as if you were creating a new selection. You can also use this mode to select areas that don’t touch each other, like the irises in your dog’s eyes (see page 456). 140 P CS: T M M Selecting by Shape Figure 4-3: Using the buttons in the Options bar, you can add to or subtract from a selection, as well as create a selection from two intersecting areas. Since all selections begin at the point where you first click, you can easily select one of these doors by drag- ging diagonally from the top-left corner to the bottom right as shown here. You can tell from the tiny + sign next to the crosshair-shaped cursor that you’re in “Add to selection” mode, so this figure now has two selec- tions: the blue door and the red door. New selection Add to selection Subtract from selection Intersect with selection • Subtract from the selection. Clicking the Options bar’s “Subtract from selec- tion” button (also shown in Figure 4-3) or pressing and holding the Option key (Alt on a PC) has the opposite effect. You see a tiny – sign beneath your cursor to let you know you’re in this mode. Mouse over to your document and draw a box (or oval) around the area you want to deselect. • Intersect one selection with another. If you click the “Intersect with selection” button after you draw a selection, Photoshop lets you draw another selection that overlaps the first; the marching ants then surround only the area where the two selections overlap. It’s a little confusing, but don’t worry because you’ll 141  : :     Selecting by Shape rarely use this mode (if at all). The keyboard shortcut is Shift-Option (Shift+Alt on a PC). Photoshop puts a tiny multiplication sign (×) beneath your cursor when you use this mode. • Feather. If you want to soften the edges of your selection so that it blends into the background or another image, use feathering. You can enter a value in pixels in this field before you create the selection. As you’ll learn later in this chapter, feathering a selection lets you gently fade one image into another. See the box on page 145 for more on feathering. • Anti-alias. Turn on the Anti-alias checkbox to make Photoshop smooth the color transition between the pixels around the edges of your selection and the pixels in the background. Like feathering, anti-aliasing softens your selection’s edges slightly so that they blend better, though you can’t control the amount of softening Photoshop applies. It’s a good idea to leave this checkbox turned on unless you want your selection to have super crisp—and possibly jagged and blocky—edges. • Style. If you want to constrain your selection to a fixed size or aspect ratio (so that the relationship between its width and height stays the same), you can se- lect Fixed Width or Fixed Ratio from the Style pop-up menu and then enter the size you want in the resulting width and height fields. (Be sure to enter a unit of measurement into each field, such as px for pixels.) If you leave the Normal option selected, you can draw any size selection you want. Here’s how to select two doors in the same photo, as shown in Figure 4-3: 1. Click the marquee tool icon in the Tools panel and choose the Rectangular Marquee from the pop-up menu (shown in Figure 4-2). The Tools panel remembers which marquee tool you last used, so you’ll see that tool’s icon on top of the selection tools pop-up menu. If that’s the one you want to use, just press M to activate it. If not, in the Tools panel, click and hold whichever marquee tool is showing until the pop-up menu appears and then choose the tool you want. Tip: To cycle between the Rectangular and Elliptical Marquee tools, press M to activate the marquee toolset and then press Shift-M to activate each one in turn. If that doesn’t work, make sure that a gremlin hasn’t turned off the preference that makes this trick possible. Choose Photoshop➝Preferences➝General (Edit➝Preferences➝General on a PC) and make sure the “Use Shift Key for Tool Switch” checkbox is turned on. 2. Drag to draw a box around the first door. To select the blue door shown in Figure 4-3, click its top-left corner and drag di- agonally toward its bottom-right corner. When you get the whole door in your selection, release the mouse button. Don’t worry if you don’t get the selection in exactly the right spot; you can move it around in the next step. 142 P CS: T M M Selecting by Shape 3. Move your selection into place if necessary. If you need to move the selection, just click inside the selected area (your cursor turns into a tiny arrow) and drag the selection box where you want it. You can also use the arrows on your keyboard to nudge the selection in one direction or another (you don’t need to click it first). 4. Press the “Add to selection” button in the Options bar and then select the second door by drawing a selection around it. Photoshop lets you know that you’re in “Add to selection” mode by placing a tiny + sign beneath your cursor. Once you see it, mouse over to the second door and drag diagonally from its top-left corner to its bottom right, as shown in Figure 4-3. If you need to move this second selection around, do that before you release the mouse button or you’ll end up moving both selections instead of just one. To move a selection while you’re drawing it, hold down your mouse button, press and hold the space bar, and then move your mouse to move the selection. When you’ve got the selection in the right place, release the space bar—but keep holding the mouse button—and continue dragging to draw the selection. This maneuver feels a bit awkward at first, but you’ll get used to it with practice. Congratulations! You’ve just made your first selection and added to it. Way to go! Tip: To draw a perfectly square or circular selection, press and hold the Shift key as you drag with the Rectangular or Elliptical Marquee tool, respectively. If you want to draw the selection from the center out- ward (instead of from corner to corner), press and hold the Option key (Alt on a PC). If you want to draw a perfectly square or circular selection from the center outward, press and hold Shift-Option (Shift+Alt) as you drag with either tool. Whew—that’s a lot of keys! Be sure to use this trick only on new selections—if you’ve already got a selection, the Shift key pops you into “Add to selection” mode. Creating a soft vignette The Elliptical Marquee tool works just like the Rectangular Marquee tool except that it draws round or oval selections. It’s the perfect tool for selecting eyes, circling yourself in a group photo (page 184), or creating the ever-popular, oh-so-romantic, soft oval vignette shown in Figure 4-4. 143  : :     Selecting by Shape Figure 4-4: By feathering a selection you’ve made with the Elliptical Marquee tool and adding a layer mask (page 113), you can create a quick two-photo collage like this one. Wedding photogra- phers and moms—not to mention armadillo fans— love this kind of thing! If you forget to feather your selection before you add a layer mask, not to worry: you can always use the Masks panel (page 120) to do it after the fact. Just click to select the mask thumbnail and then choose Window➝Masks. When the Masks panel opens, drag the Feather slider slightly to the right to give it a soft edge. Once you get the hang of this technique, try creating it using the Ellipse Shape tool set to draw in path mode instead, as described in the section on shape tools later in this chapter. It’s a little bit quicker and slightly more efficient! Here’s how to create a soft oval vignette: 1. Open two images and combine them into one document. Simply drag one image from its Layers panel into the other document’s window, as shown on page 101. 2. Reposition the layers so the soon-to-be-vignetted photo is at the top of the Layers panel. Over in the Layers panel, make sure that both layers are editable so you can change their stacking order. If you see a tiny padlock to the right of either layer’s name, double-click that layer in the Layers panel to make it editable. Then drag the layer containing the photo you want to vignette (in Figure 4-4, that’s the picture of the armadillo) to the top of the Layers panel. 144 P CS: T M M Selecting by Shape 3. Grab the Elliptical Marquee tool and select the part of the image you want to vignette (here, the armadillo’s head). Peek at your Layers panel to make sure the correct photo layer is selected (the armadillo) and position your mouse near the center of the image. Press and hold the Option key (Alt on a PC), mouse over to the image, and drag to draw an oval-shaped selection from the inside out. When you’ve got the selection big enough, release the Option (or Alt) key and your mouse button. 4. Feather the selection’s edges by clicking the Refine Edge button in the Options bar. In the resulting dialog box, make sure all the sliders are set to 0 and then drag the Feather slider to the right. If you want to see what the feathered edge will look like, release your mouse button and take a peek at your document—you’ll see the newly softened edge against a temporary white background. If you want to preview the feather against a different background, click any of the other pre- view buttons toward the bottom of the dialog box. (Page 166 covers the Refine Edge dialog box in greater detail.) When it looks good, click OK to close the dialog box. 5. Hide the area outside the selection with a layer mask. You could simply inverse the selection (page 155) and then press the Delete key (Backspace on a PC) to zap the area outside the selection, but that’d be mighty reckless. What if you changed your mind? You’d have to undo several steps or— curses—start over completely! A less destructive and more flexible approach, which you learned about back on page 113, is to hide the area outside the selec- tion with a layer mask. Over in the Layers panel, make sure you have the correct layer selected (in this case, the armadillo) and then add a layer mask by clicking the tiny circle-within-a-square icon at the bottom of the Layers panel (you can also use the Mask panel’s Feather slider to soften the mask’s edge, if you hap- pened to skip the previous step of feathering the selection). Photoshop hides everything outside the selection area, letting you see through to the bluebonnet layer below. Beautiful! That armadillo looks right at home, doesn’t he? You’ll want to memorize these steps because this method is perhaps the easiest—and most romantic!—way to combine two images into a new and unique piece of art (although starting on page 146 you’ll learn how to use the vector Shape tools to do the same thing). The Single Row and Column Marquee Tools The Marquee toolset also contains the Single Row Marquee and Single Column Marquee tools, which can select exactly one row or one column’s worth of pixels, spanning either the width or the height of your document. You don’t need to drag with your mouse to create a selection with these tools; just click once in your docu- ment and the marching ants appear. 145  : :     Selecting by Shape Now, you may be asking, “When would I want to do that?” Not often, it’s true, but consider these circumstances: • Mocking up a web page design. If you need to simulate a column or row of space between certain areas in a web page, you can use either tool to create a selection that you fill with the website’s background color, or you can just delete the existing pixels by pressing the Delete key (Backspace on a PC). FReQUeNtLY ASKed QUeStIoN The Softer Side of Selections How come my selections always have hard edges? Can I make them soft instead? When you first install Photoshop, any selection you make has a hard edge, but you can apply feathering to soften it up. Feathered selections are perfect for blending one image—or a portion of an image—into another, as in the soft oval vignette effect, an oldie but goody shown on page 142. You can also feather a selection when you re- touch an image, so the retouched area fades gently into the surrounding pixels, making it look more realistic. This technique is especially helpful when you’re whitening teeth (page 436), fixing animal white-eye (page 456), or swap- ping heads (page 179). You can feather a selection, either before or after you’ve created it, in a variety of ways: After you choose a selection tool from the Tools panel—but before you draw your selection—hop up to the Options bar and enter a Feather amount in pixels (you can enter whole numbers or decimals, like 0.5). Feathering by just a few pixels blurs and softens the selection’s edges only slightly, whereas increasing the Feather setting creates a wider, more intense blur and a super-soft edge. After you draw the selection, you can change the Feather setting either by choosing Select➝Modify➝Feather and then entering a number of pixels or by Ctrl-clicking (right- clicking on a PC) the selection and choosing Feather from the resulting shortcut menu. However, by far the best method is to use the Refine Edge dialog box, which lets you see what the feathered edge will look like before you commit to it. To use this method, draw a selection and then head up to the Options bar and click the Refine Edge button. The dialog box that appears has five preview buttons that show a loopy metallic ring. Click one of these buttons to put a temporary background behind your selection (making its edges more visible) and then adjust the Feather slider to your liking. Once you’ve got the feather just right, press OK to dismiss the dialog box. Note that the settings in the Refine Edges dialog box are “sticky,” meaning that once you change them, they stay changed until you modify them again. For that reason, you should set the other sliders to 0 to keep your selection from changing in unexpected ways. (Page 166 has more about the Refine Edge dialog box.) You won’t notice a change to your marching ants (unless you enter a huge amount of feathering on a rectangular selection, which makes the corners look rounded), but, rest assured, Photoshop has indeed feathered your selection. Once you delete the rest of the image (or hide it with a layer mask, as shown on page 143), you’ll see the newly softened edges. 146 P CS: T M M Selecting by Shape • Stretching an image to fill a space. If you’re designing a web page, for example, you can use these tools to extend the image by a pixel or two. Use either tool to select a row of pixels at the bottom or side of the image, grab the Move tool by pressing V, and tap the arrow keys on your keyboard while holding the Option key (Alt on a PC) to nudge the selection in the direction you need and duplicate it at the same time. However, a better option might be to use Content-Aware Scale (see page 258). • Making an image look like it’s melting or traveling through space at warp speed. You can use either tool to create a selection and then stretch it with the Free Transform tool (see Figure 4-5). Figure 4-5: To achieve the melting strawberry look shown here, start by using the Single Row Marquee to select a row of pixels. Then “jump” the selec- tion onto its own layer by pressing �-J (Ctrl+J on a PC). Next, summon the Free Transform tool by pressing �-T (Ctrl+T), and drag one of the square, white center handles downward. Unfortunately you can’t get to the Single Row and Single Column Marquee tools with a keyboard shortcut; you’ve got to activate them in the Tools panel instead. The Vector Shape Tools Okay, technically, vector shapes aren’t selection tools at all, but you can use them to create selections (turn to page 551 to learn more about vector shapes). Once you get the hang of using them (as this section shows you) you’ll be reaching for ’em all the time. [...]... on, Photoshop tries to replace the color of selected pixels with the color of pixels nearby (whether they’re selected or not) Drag the Amount slider to the right to change the color of more edge pixels, or to the left for fewer To see the color changes for yourself, choose Reveal Layer from the View Mode (or just press R) 170 Photoshop CS5: The Missing Manual Modifying Selections • Output To This is Photoshop s... object, switch to the regular Eraser tool (page 284) or the Lasso tool (page 162) to get rid of the remaining background After you erase the hard part the area around the edges—with the Background Eraser, you can use the regular Eraser tool, set to a large brush, to get rid of the remaining background quickly You can also use the Lasso tool to select the remaining areas and then press the Delete key (Backspace... among the same modes you get for most of the selection tools: New, “Add to selection”, “Subtract from selection”, and “Intersect with selection” They’re discussed in detail back on pages 139–140 162 Photoshop CS5: The Missing Manual Selecting Irregular Areas • Feather If you want Photoshop to blur the edges of your selection, enter a pixel value in this field Otherwise, Photoshop won’t do any feathering... Ellipse Shape tool to create the vignette shown in the previous section You can also feather the mask after you’ve made it by choosing Window➝Masks to open the Masks panel, and then dragging the Feather slider to the right 148 Photoshop CS5: The Missing Manual Selecting by Color Selecting by Color In addition to giving you tools to select areas by shape, Photoshop lets you select areas by color This option... click the area you don’t want included Figure 4-9:  With its tolerance set to 32, the Magic Wand did a good job of selecting the sky behind downtown Dallas You’ve got several ways to select the spots it missed like the area circled at the bottom left: You can add to the selection by pressing the Shift key as you click in that area, increase the tolerance setting in the Options bar and then click the. .. good idea to keep the tolerance set fairly low (somewhere between 12 and 32); you can always click an area to see what kind of selection you get, increase the tolerance if you need to, and then click the area again (or add to the selection using the Shift key, as described above) 152 Photoshop CS5: The Missing Manual Selecting by Color Note: When you adjust the Magic Wand’s tolerance, Photoshop won’t... in these playing cards (what a poker hand!), the Grow command won’t help because the red pixels aren’t touching each other In that case, click once with the Magic Wand to select one of the red areas (left) and then use the Similar command to grab the rest of them (right) Read ’em and weep, boys! The Color Range Command The Color Range command is similar to the tools in this section in that it makes selections... Selection turned on, press the � key (Ctrl on a PC) to switch temporarily to Image preview When you let go of the key, you’re back to Selection preview 156 Photoshop CS5: The Missing Manual Selecting by Color The Selection Preview pop-up menu at the bottom of the dialog box lets you display a selection preview on the image itself so that, instead of using the dinky preview in the dialog box, you can see... select it, and then drag to move it wherever you want 5 Hide the area outside the path by adding a layer mask Over in the Layers panel, click the photo layer once to select it and then add a vector layer mask by �-clicking (Ctrl-clicking) the tiny circle-within-a-square icon at the bottom of the Layers panel Photoshop hides the old, boring square photo edges Why a vector mask, you ask? Because the path you... rid of them 5 Load the erased layer as a selection and turn off its visibility Over in the Layers panel, �-click (Ctrl-click on a PC) the thumbnail of the layer you did the erasing work on to create a selection around the tree When you see the marching ants, click the layer’s visibility eye to turn it off 6 Select the original layer, turn on its visibility, and then put a layer mask over it In the Layers . into another. See the box on page 14 5 for more on feathering. • Anti-alias. Turn on the Anti-alias checkbox to make Photoshop smooth the color transition between the pixels around the edges. Layers panel into the other document’s window, as shown on page 10 1. 2. Reposition the layers so the soon-to-be-vignetted photo is at the top of the Layers panel. Over in the Layers panel,. clicking the Refine Edge button in the Options bar. In the resulting dialog box, make sure all the sliders are set to 0 and then drag the Feather slider to the right. If you want to see what the