We used a number of tools in the opening project to select the osprey that we moved to the photo of the Italian town. You may wish to review that exercise. Let’s take a look at how those tools work here. This time, we’ll end with the Quick Selection tool. The first two methods (Select Subject and the Object Selection tool) are under very active development at Adobe, so we’re all looking forward to how they grow into their potential.
When certain selection tools are active, a button labeled Select Subject will be available in the Options Bar. The function, however, is available anytime from the Select menu.
As of this writing, and for this particular image, the result isn’t quite what we hoped. Impressively, the juggling balls are ignored as we wanted, but sadly so were Peachy’s feet and one of her hands.
If you surrounded all of her, the result is impressive. If you missed anything (like parts of her leaves), hold down shift and draw a second box that surrounds the neglected area. Then, you should be impressed. The slightly blurry juggling balls are ignored and Peachy is well selected. But let’s see what other tools may have been helpful had this one failed us.
You’ll see that it selects the black of the eye, but the selection edge stops at the white area surrounding it. That’s because this tool reads the color you click on and then grows a selection from that point outward until it reaches something different enough. That “different enough” value is set in the Options Bar with a control called Tolerance. Most often, the Tolerance value is a range of levels or tones on each color channel above and below that of the pixel you click on. But it can be different than that if the pixel you click on is very light or dark. So just know that high values will select larger areas than low values, and you should usually change Tolerance a little at a time.
But what would we have done if there hadn’t been this convenient black backdrop? Glad you asked!
Like the Magic Wand tool, this tool reads what you click on (or drag over). It uses a circular, brushlike cursor to approximate the wand’s Tolerance and Sampling Size: the larger this tool’s brush, the more aggressive it becomes. The amount you sample in one go also affects how aggressively this tool selects. So I advise using smallish brushes and numerous strokes rather than one or a few strokes with a large brush size. For this image, that would mean a brush about 100 pixels across.
Warning: As you “paint” your selection with this tool, keep the cursor’s edge within Peachy’s perimeter. Each brush stroke tells Photoshop what textures and colors you want selected. Going over the lines confuses that. If you do so, undo (⌘-Z/Ctrl-Z) and try again more carefully.
You may notice that you didn’t have to cover everything. It’s likely Photoshop selected one of her hands for you. In other images, Photoshop’s guesses could be wrong. When that’s the case, hold down option/Alt and paint over the areas that shouldn’t be selected. This helps the program know what you want and what you don’t.
So the rule is: when you make a mistake, undo. When Photoshop makes a mistake, gently correct it by option/Alt-painting with this tool.
Did you miss anything? Are you sure? Quick Mask is a cool and fast way to show you which areas are and aren’t selected.
Warning: For now, don’t do any selection-making while in Quick Mask mode. Be sure you’ve toggled back to regular mode first. How do you know for sure which mode you’re in? Look at the tab with the name of the file. If it says “Quick Mask” in it, tap Q to get out.
To perfect a selection, Photoshop offers an environment formerly called “Refine Edge” (still a great description) but now called Select and Mask. Note its button in the Options Bar. Although we can make selections as well as refine them there, I most often prefer to do only refinement.
Before proceeding, you have a reading assignment. You’ll recognize our protagonist, so it will be very relevant to this exercise.
Now that you know the options available in Select and Mask, let’s apply a few.
The edges should look far better now!