Oval selection

The second method is to manually select with the “Elliptical Marquee” tool.

This option can be found under the “Rectangular Marquee” tool. So right click below “Rectangular Marquee” tool and choose “Elliptical Marquee” from the pop-up menu.

I do not give much explanation here because it works the same way as the “Rectangular Marquee” tool and has the same options.

 

Row Marquee / column Marquee

What these do is, select a row of pixels across the entire row or column of the picture.

Lasso

We use the lasso when we want to draw a selection in any form we want.
The only requirement is that you have a steady hand. If you are on drugs or alcohol everyday, you better stay away.To use the “Lasso” tool, click the mouse button, you can see two other tools appear. The “Polygonal Lasso” and the “Magnetic Lasso” (1).

Use the Polygonal Lasso tool if you want straight lines and select the magnetic lasso, which basically is an automatic method of selection.

To use the lasso tool, first you select the “Lasso” (2) tool, of course, quite logical.

You click in the picture where you want to start the selection, and you drag the mouse (3) around what you want to select.

Do not release the mouse button until you’re back at the beginning of the selection.

This is important because once you relelase the mouse button, Photoshop will automatically connect this point with the start point of the selection, with a straight line.

Polygonal Lasso

If you have to select straight lines, use the “Polygonal Lasso” (1) tool.

Lets click on the start of the selection, then you click on the second point, the third point, fourth point, and so on. Until you get back to where you started. All these points are called anchor points.

Move your mouse pointer over the starting point, the first anchor point, then a small circle appears. Click on this circle and the selection is closed.

If you want to close the selection early, double click an anchor point in the picture. This will be just as closing the selection to the first anchor point, by means of a straight line.

Move the mouse pointer between two points, a kind of ealastic band appears between the last point clicked and the mouse pointer.

If you want to switch between the “Polygonal Lasso” tool and “Lasso” tool, then hold the Alt key on your keyboard and stick it down. Do not let this go, then it switches back to the Photoshop tool “Polygonal Lasso”.

This can be useful when a form such as the window (3) in the photo above is selected, where there are straight lines and free forms to be selected.

If you accidentally inserted an anchor point where you do not want, click the button “Back” on your keyboard. This will remove the last placed anchor. If you wish to delete multiple points, click the button repeatedly.

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