Save Selection

When we have spent a long time for a decent selection, it is only natural that we also want to save. We do this with each document, so why not with a selection?
To save a selection, click “Select” – “Save Selection” …in the menu bar.
This opens the dialog “Save Selection”:

In the first box (Document), choose a name of the picture in which you want to store this selection, but in the normal course, you save the picture in which it was created. So let the first box be what it is.
The second box (Channel), let us also be what it is because we want to save the selection as a new channel. We will discuss more about “Channel” (Channels) in a later lesson.
In the third box (Name), we give our selection an appropriate name.
And the lower section of the dialog, let’s also be what it is, for the simple reason that we have no choice, since we want to save the selection as a new Channel.

We now see that our selection is stored.
Well, we open the “Channels” panel:

If you do not see this panel, click “Window” – “Channels” in the menu bar.
The upper four channels are the different colors from which our picture was created.
RGB display of all colors – Red – Green – Blue.
But as I said before, I’ll tell you more about channels in a later lesson.
And at the bottom, we find the channel we just made from our selection.

Now we have to save this picture with another extension because our original one is “.Jpg” file and it does not support alpha channels.
The most common extension for this is “.PSD” or “.TIFF”.
To save the picture with a different extension, click on “File” – “Save As” from the menu bar.
In the dialog that appears you give a name, select the correct extension, I always use the “.PSD” because I will still work with that in Photoshop.
Check the box “Alpha Channels” section in the Save Options and click the Save button.

If we later wish to use this selection, choose “Select” – “Load Selection” in the menu bar.
You select the Alpha Channel and click OK.

In the next lesson, we will also do something with this selection.

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