Even celebrities admit that 99% of the photos you see online and in magazines are photoshopped. Of course, we’re not all looking for ways to manipulate photos to make ourselves look better. Photoshop is a great tool to make your photos, logos, and flyers pop!
If you regularly use Photoshop to edit your photos, one of the skills you need to know and master is how to select in Photoshop. The selection tools help you cut out objects and people from the background.
Have you ever had a time when someone was missing from a photo and you want to add them? You can do that by cutting them out of another picture and adding them to your photo.
You can also combine multiple images together and carefully edit certain aspects of an image. All this is tricky without knowing how to use the right tools. Keep reading to learn four tips for using the Photoshop selection tool.
1. Select and Adjust Only a Selected Area
If you want to work on only a certain area of a photo without changing any other part, you can isolate it with the Rectangular Marquee tool. Select the tool and drag it over the area you want to edit. If you need to make it larger, click the Add icon. To select less, click Subtract.
Once you select the layer you want to adjust, apply different adjustments by clicking Image, then Adjustments. When you’re done, deselect by choosing Select, then Deselect.
2. Quick Selection
Go into the Tools panel and select the Quick Selection tool. Drag it over the area you want to select. At this point, it automatically goes to the Add to Selection option. Now you can drag it to add to your selected area.
To reduce the size, hold the Alt key for Windows or the Option key for macOS and drag over the areas you want to remove from your selection. Another way to highlight the subject of your photo is to use an online background remover.
3. Lasso Tool
If you want to clean up something you started with another tool, choose the Lasso tool from the Tools panel. If you want to add to a selection that you made with another tool, press Shift and then drag around the area you want to add. To subtract, select the Subtract from Selection and drag like you did to add.
4. Fine Tune a Photo
Choose the Quick Selection tool. Go to the Options bar and click Select and Mask. This will open up the workspace. On the right side of the workspace, you’ll find the View menu. Choose one of the options on the menu like Overlay.
The part of the photo that you select will be clear and the non-selected area is red by default to help you delineate between the two. Use the tools in the Tools panel like the Brush tool to paint the image where you want to add to the selected area.
When you’re done, go to the Output Settings select Output, and choose Selection as the output type. To close the workspace, click OK.
Photoshop Selection Tool
Now that you have some insight into the Photoshop selection tool, you can use a combination of the tools to do all kinds of things. Make precise edits, and composite photos together, bring in new backgrounds, and more. Learning this important skill will prove to be very useful in all your photo editing ventures.
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