How to Make Selections in Photoshop

Photoshop’s Selection Tools

• Marquee tool : Used for making broad rectangular, elliptical, or circular selections. To use it, click and drag over the parts of the image that you’d like to select. Release the mouse button to make the selection. By default, the Marquee tool makes rectangular selections. To force the tool to select perfect squares or circles, hold down the Shift key while you drag to make the selection. To make selections in a variety of other shapes, such as ellipses, click and hold on the tool’s icon in the Tools palette.
• Lasso tool : Used for making freehand selections in parts of an image that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to select with just the Marquee tool. For instance, to select one piece of fruit from a still life of a bowl of fruit, you might use the Lasso tool. To use the Lasso tool, click and drag around the part of the image that you’d like to select and let go to finalize the selection. Photoshop will then automatically complete the shape by connecting the starting and ending points of your selection.
• Polygonal Lasso tool : A “hidden” tool located behind the Lasso tool in the Tools palette. It’s used to make freehand selections by connecting a series of straight lines (to form a polygonal selection). To use the Polygonal Lasso tool, click once to start a selection. A line will extend from the first click until you click again, connecting the two points with a straight line. Repeat this process until you’ve completed your selection. To finalize the selection, click again on the starting point—a tiny circle will appear next to the tool on your cursor to indicate that you’re on the right spot to close the selection. To finalize the selection without returning to the original spot, double-click—Photoshop inserts a line connecting the point on which you double-click and the starting point of the selection.
• Magnetic Lasso tool : Another “hidden” tool located behind the Lasso tool in the Tools palette. The Magnetic Lasso tool is used to make “automatic” selections that you might otherwise make by hand with the standard Lasso tool. As you surround the part of the image that you’d like to select, the Magnetic Lasso tool guesses the object you’re trying to select and “sticks” to the edges of that object as you click and drag around it. You then complete the selection just as you do when using the Polygonal Lasso tool. The Magnetic Lasso tool works best when selecting parts of an image that have a clearly defined boundary, such as an airplane silhouetted against a blue sky.
• Magic Wand tool : The Magic Wand tool makes selections based on the color of pixels in the image. It’s used to select areas of an image that contain mainly one color, such as an entire gray sky or a red ball. To make a selection with the Magic Wand, just click once on the area that you’d like to select. Photoshop will then select all the other pixels in the surrounding area that contain the same color as the pixel you first clicked on. If you click on Contiguous in the Options palette, the Magic Wand will select only pixels that are contiguous with the pixel on which you first clicked (not disconnected “islands” of pixels throughout the image that happen to be the same color as the pixel you clicked on). To adjust the shades of color that are considered the same as the pixel you first clicked, change the Tolerance setting—the higher the tolerance, the more shades Photoshop will include in the selection.
• Quick Selection tool : A “hidden” tool located behind the Magic Wand tool in the Tools palette. It’s used to make targeted selections over broad areas of an image. Like a combination of the Magic Wand and the Brush tool, the Quick Selection tool lets you “paint” within the area that you’d like to select. As you paint, Photoshop finds the edges of the area you’re selecting and lines them with marching ants automatically. Many Photoshop CS3 users consider the Quick Selection a faster, more precise alternative to the Magic Wand.

How to Add to and Subtract from Selections

• To add to an existing selection: Hold down the Shift key and apply the selection tool as you normally would. The new areas that you select will be added to your original selection once you release the mouse button.
• To subtract from a selection: Hold down the Alt key (or the Option key on a Mac) and apply a selection tool as you normally would. The areas that you select will be removed from your original selection once you release the mouse button.

How to Select an Entire Image

How to Refine Selections

• Feathering: Softens the edge of a selection. It’s used most often when copying (or cutting) and pasting the selected area into a different part of the image, or into another image. A feathered selection will blend neatly into the surrounding pixels rather than create a jagged edge between the original pixels and the pixels in the pasted selection. To feather a selection, go to Select > Modify > Feather.
• Refine Edge: In Photoshop CS3, the Options palette of every selection tool includes a Refine Edge button. Clicking this button opens a dialog box in which you can adjust the edges of your selection and preview the results of your adjustments before finalizing them. The Refine Edge feature allows for much more precise selection adjustments than Feathering alone—it’s by far the best way to refine selections in Photoshop CS3.