Magnetic Lasso

The last option under the lasso tool is the “Magnetic Lasso”.  The “Magnetic Lasso” is an automated method of selection.  Click once on the edge of the section you want to select, for example the edge of the roof of this house.  Then move the mouse further over the edge.   Just move, NO clicking, No dragging.

The “Magnetic Lasso” tool automatically anchors and lines, depending on the color difference of the pixels.

The number of pixels of the “Magnetic Lasso” tool will depend on the diameter which is set for the brush, in the “Width” box in the options bar.

Default setting is set to 10, but if you do not wish to give it as much freedom, you can change it in this “Width” box (1).

AZERTY users better enter this setting before they begin to select, QUERTY-users can use brackets on their keyboard at any time.

If you want to see the brush, click the button “CAPS LOCK” on your keyboard.

To remove the anchors that are set by the “Magnetic Lasso”, click the “Back” button on your keyboard. Then move your mouse pointer over the line which is drawn by the “Magnetic Lasso”, back to the previous anchor point and go again from there.

To get some help for this tool, you choose the anchor point by clicking in the picture.

Another tip.
When you work with a selection tool, zoom in as much as possible on the section to select and use the spacebar to temporarily switch to  “Hand” tool, with which you can navigate to a hidden area in your photo.

Tip two.
To switch between the “Magnetic Lasso” tool and “Lasso” tool, hold the Alt key on your keyboard pressed. Release it when you want to switch to the “Magnetic Lasso”.  If you’ve switched to the “Lasso” tool, it means that you have to drag and drop, but I think you know it by now.
If you want to switch between the “Magnetic Lasso” and the “Polygonal Lasso”, hold the Alt key on your keyboard pressed and click on the next point.

So from “Magnetic Lasso” to “Lasso” = Alt + click and drag.
From “Magnetic Lasso” to “Polygonal Lasso” = Alt + drag.

Quick Selection

The “Quick Selection” tool is one of my favorite tools in Photoshop. It goes fast, otherwise it is not called “quick selection” and it’s easy, and it’s fun.To work with this tool, select this first, of course, in the tool bar (1), click and drag in the photo on the place you want to select (2).  As you drag, the selection is automatically extended on the basis of differences in contrast in the photo.

As with any selection you make, it is advisable wherever possible to zoom in on the selection area. If there are parts of the selected that you do not want to select (6), use the “Subtract from Selection” (3) and click and drag over the part of the selected.

As you notice, we are also talking about the three buttons “New Selection”, “Add to Selection” and “Subtract from Selection” (3).

Tip 1:
use the smallest possible brush tip (4) in selecting, this makes it easier to work accurately.
The shortcut for this for the QWERTY users are the square brackets, for AZERTY the ones you have set in the “Hot keys” dialog (see lesson 13).
Tip 2:
Select “Auto Enhance” (5), this makes the edges of the selected smoother.

Tip 3:
First tell the “Quick Selection” tool, what not to select.  This is done by first using the “Quick Selection” tool button somewhere in the area that it should select, then hold the Alt key on your keyboard while you click and drag to select around the area. Once you are around, you let go the Alt key and select the area by clicking and dragging.

You’ll now see that Photoshop is not so fast in selecting “outside the box”.

Of course you should take this with a grain of salt, when you select something far beyond the selection, you will be asking Photoshop to select.

If you have finished your selection, you can, for example, drag it into another image.
But more on that later.

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