Selecting just parts of images to edit is an important step in your workflow.
By creating a selection, you can edit specific areas of the image, while leaving the rest of the image unchanged.
You create a selection when you want to isolate part of an image.
For example, you can use a selection to adjust or retouch one area of a image,
while leaving non-selected areas untouched.
or to copy a portion of a photo and paste it into another photo.
The way you make a selection will depend on whether you are working on a raster layer or a vector layer.
In this tutorial we’ll be taking a look at the individual Selection tools and how they work.
And we’ll also be taking a closer look at the tool properties and how selections can be modified.
One of the easiest selection tools to use is the Auto Selection tool.
This tool lets you create a smart selection by enclosing an image area in a rectangle
that automatically snaps to any edges it detects.
The settings available for the Auto Selection tool on the Tool Options bar include:
Feather which softens the edges of a selection by specifying a fade width (from 0 to 200 pixels).
Magic Fill - which will replace the contents of the selected area with the surrounding area.
This can be quite useful for seamlessly removing unwanted objects in photos.
Magic Move - this allows us to move a selected area, filling the space with elements from outside the selection.
At the same time, the selection is converted into a new, floating selection.
This "floating" selection can be converted to a layer...
copied,
The Smart Selection Brush lets you create a selection by brushing over a sample area.
There is no need to paint over the whole elephant here.
I just need to move the Smart Selection Brush through the elephant and the tool will detect the edges automatically.
The selection expands automatically to the edges based on the information that is sampled by the brush.
In addition to the Magic Fill and Magic Move tools, the Smart Selection Brush also allows us to adjust the following:
Mode specifies whether to replace, add, or remove an existing selection.
Replace is the default setting.
Add will allow you to expand the already selected area,
and Remove will remove parts of the selection.
You can also refine a selection, by pressing Shift and dragging to add to the selection,
or pressing Ctrl and dragging to remove from the selection.
Tolerance controls how closely the selected pixels match the pixel you click in the image.
At low settings, only similar pixels are chosen; at high settings, a wider range of pixels is selected.
Anti-alias applies a smooth edge to a selection by making the pixels along its edges semitransparent
and you can choose to apply this to the inside or outside of the selection.
And finally, Use all layers. This will search for an edge in all layers of the selected area, if your image has multiple layers.
This option is available when you enable Smart Edge on multilayer images.
Moving on to the Selection tool, this tool lets you create a selection of a specific shape, such as a rectangle, square, ellipse, circle, star etc.
On the Tool Options bar, the Selection type drop- down lets you choose a shape for your selection.
Selection style lets you choose from three styles:
Normal is a free form style,
Fixed Size lets you specify values in the Width and Height boxes,
and Fixed Ratio maintains only the proportions set in the Width and Height boxes.
Create Selection from, gives us three further options:
Current Selection lets us replace an existing selection by placing a rectangular selection around it.
Layer Opaque creates a rectangular selection around all non-transparent areas of the current layer.
Merged Opaque creates a rectangular selection around all non-transparent areas of all layers within the image.
And finally we have Custom Selection.
In the Custom Selection dialog box, specify the selection position, in pixels, for the left, top, right, and bottom edges.
The Freehand Selection tool lets you create a selection around the edges of an object,
such as petals of a flower or fingers on a hand.
You can make four types of selections with the Freehand selection tool:
Freehand lets you quickly select an area by dragging in the image.
Edge Seeker finds the edges between two areas with color differences when you click on the edges of irregularly shaped areas.
When making an Edge Seeker selection, you can set the distance used to search for an edge
by typing a value in the Range control on the Tool Options palette.
Point to Point lets you draw straight lines between points to create a selection with straight edges.
And finally, Smart Edge automatically finds the edges of irregularly shaped areas when you click along the edges
If the outline is very irregular, then Smoothing will allow you to adjust the amount of smoothing applied to the selection border.
The last selection tool, the Magic Wand tool makes a selection based on the color, hue, brightness, or opacity of an object.
This tool is designed to select an area that has distinctly different pixels than those in other areas of an image,
for example, a pink rose surrounded by green leaves, or a dark area in an otherwise bright image.
Check the settings of the following controls on the Tool Options palette, and modify them if necessary:
Tolerance controls how closely the selected pixels match the pixel you click in the image.
At low settings, only similar pixels are chosen; at high settings, a wider range of pixels is selected.
Use all layers searches for matching pixels across all layers in the image.
Contiguous selects only pixels that connect to the pixel you click.
Now we have seen how the Selection tools basically work, lets take a look at how we can modify our selections.
For example we can also create or modify a selection by using a Painting tool.
Choose Selections > Edit Selection. A selection layer is added to the Layers palette.
Select a painting tool from the Tools toolbar.
Choose settings for the painting tool on the Tool Options palette and the Brush Variance palette.
A ruby-colored overlay displays the brush strokes. The selection changes according to the following:
Painting with white adds to the selection.
Painting with black subtracts from the selection.
Painting with shades of gray adds to or subtracts from the selection, depending on the level of gray.
We can also create a selection by using the Text tool. On the Tools toolbar, choose the Text tool.
On the Tool Options palette, choose Selection from the Create as drop-list to create a selection shaped like the text.
Click where you want to start the text selection
Click the Apply button to accept the changes.
Once we have our text selection, we can copy and paste from other sources, into this selection
You might have noticed that we also have a Selection menu and it is here where we will find options for modifying our selections.
The selection marquee is visible by default. When you work with a selection,
it is sometimes helpful to hide the selection marquee temporarily without disabling the selection.
For example, you may want to see the results of pasting a selection or of feathering a selection’s edges.
Here for example, without feathering...
...and here with additional feathering applied.
Selections can be modified in various ways. You can modify a selection by adding image content to it or by subtracting image content from it.
For example, in this picture of a person carrying a large sign, you can select the sign by using the rectangular Selection tool
and then add the person to the selection by using the Smart Selection brush in Add mode.
To expand a selection by a specific number of pixels choose Selections > Modify > Expand.
The Expand Selection dialog box appears.
Specify by how many pixels you would like to expand the selection and click OK.
To contract a selection by a specific number of pixels choose Selections > Modify > Contract.
Sometimes, the easiest way to make a complicated selection
is to select the part of the image that you don’t want and then invert the selection.
In this case, it's easier for me to select the sky than the Eiffel Tower.
When I now Invert my selection, the Eiffel Tower becomes selected and the sky, de-selected.
The amount of feathering you use with a selection will determine if your selection looks sharply cut out - little or no feathering...
...or has soft, faded edges that blend in with the background.
To change the amount of feathering in a selection > choose Selections > Modify > Feather.
Type a pixel value in the Feather amount control.
The feathering is applied both inside and outside the selection > and click OK.
The Inside/Outside Feather option allows you to adjust the position of the feathering.
Saving and loading selections. You can save complex selections that you might want to reuse.
When you save a selection, it is saved as a separate file with a .PspSelection filename extension.
When you load a selection into an image, Corel PaintShop Pro creates a selection based on luminance, non-black pixels, or opacity.
To save a selection to a file choose Selections > Load/Save Selection > Save Selection to Disk.
Give your selection a name and click Save.
Once a selection has been saved, it can be loaded and applied to other images.
Just choose Selections > Load/Save Selection > Load Selection from Disk.
Select your saved selection and click Load.
I hope that you’ve found this short introduction into the Selection tools useful.
For more information, don’t forget to check out the PaintShop Pro User Guide that you can access under the Help file.
Thank you for watching!