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Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers Tutorials
Basic Selection Tools / Quick Select
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Subtitles of the Movie (Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers / Basic Selection Tools / Quick Select)
The Quick Select Tool was added in Photoshop CS3 and is one of my favorite selection tools. It's pretty easy to use and can often do an excellent job of selecting an object without too much effort. To begin, choose the Quick Select Tool. It lives with the Magic Wand. Then make sure that we're on New Selection and then we'll need to choose a brush size because the Quick Select Tool is actually a brush tool. You want a comfortable size as you click and drag over the areas that you're going to select. If you make it too small, while you can work very detailed, it will be an ordeal to make the selection. Similarly, if you make it too large, then it's hard for Photoshop to know exactly what you want to select and what you don't so make it a comfortable size. And then drag over the area that you want to select. Don't go too quickly. Give your processor a chance to catch up. If it makes a mistake, for example here it selected some of the black areas, we're going to click on Subtract from Selection and just nudge those edges over a little bit. Literally think of it as pushing them where you want them and go back to Add to Selection and continue drawing over the areas that you want to select. One of the nice things about the Quick Select Tool is that it actually gets smarter as you use it. So if I want to back up here now and deselect this little area and click on it, then go back to adding to my selection, woops. It certainly selected way too big of an area there. I slipped and went too far so I'll just need to nudge the edge a little bit and it gets the idea. Go back to Add to Selection, come over here and add this egg and again, it selected a few of the black areas. In most images I think you're going to find it gets a little smarter a little bit faster and over here I want to fine tune this. I'm going to zoom in a little bit and a little bit with the selection right there and right here. Woops, I forgot one egg. So I'll quickly click on it. You can see that without too much work I can make a relatively complicated selection. We've also seen that to select the eggs with some of the other selection tools may be easier but many times when you're selecting an object, or particularly a subject from your background, you're going to find that the Quick Select Tool is the easiest and most efficient tool to use; sometimes making a selection without even needing any modification, sometimes with just a little bit of modification. But changes are that it's a tool that you're going to use frequently. It's far more sophisticated than the marquee tools and it can make your life in Photoshop a lot easier. The Auto Enhance Command will help improve your edges but most of the time you're going to want to use the Refine Edges Option that we'll look at in another movie.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers |
| Author: | Ellen Anon |
| SKU: | 34036 |
| ISBN: | 1-935320-74-2 |
| Release Date: | 2009-09-23 |
| Duration: | 8.5 hrs / 112 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
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