An Introduction to Photoshop: Selection Tools

Prior to the beginning of this module I had not had any experience using Photoshop. Therefore for this assignment, I have started very much from the basics. As with anything I am finding my knowledge and usability of the software is improved with each use.

We begin with some of the basic selection tools:

• Rectangular Marquee Tool - This tool, as it sounds, will select an area of a photo by drawing a rectangular shape on the photo. This is useful for selecting a large area of a photo but has obvious problems too. In most cases I have found when using photoshop, when selecting an area of a photo, it is not going to be a perfect rectangular shape. Most of the time the area you need to select is going to be a unusual shape and so you would need a tool which enables you to draw the area you want as a free hand area.
• Lasso Tool - The Lasso tool is a tool that rectifies the problems you may have with the rectangular marquee tool. The lasso tool allows you to draw free hand around an area you wish to edit, giving you the freedom to select any shape, space or area. As this tool is totally controlled by the user it requires a great deal of attention to select the exact area you require and can take time to ensure the selection is made accurately.
• Magnetic Lasso Tool - The magnetic lasso tool is in my eyes and improvement to the lasso tool which will analyse the different colours around the area you are trying to select and snap to the area it thinks you are trying to select as you move around the photo. This will decrease the amount of time it would normally take you using the lasso tool because it will, in effect, do some of the work for you. It does have its own disadvantages though such as it will sometimes struggle to differentiate between different areas of colour when the colours are dark, so you may not get the exact area you were trying to select.
• Polygonal Lasso Tool - This is another selection tool which can be quite useful, potentially when the magnetic lasso tool is unable to find the exact area you are looking to select. The way the polygonal lasso tool works is that it will draw out the area you wish to select with straight lines, but you can start a new line at any time by clicking the mouse. As such, although the area is selected with straight lines like the rectangular marquee tool, you can end up with a much better area selection like that in the magnetic lasso tool simply by clicking at regular intervals as you move around the area you want to select. 
• Quick Selection Tool - In my experience this is my favourite selection tool. As we have practised using Photoshop, i have found this tool very easy to use and very effective at selecting an area you wish to work on. Unlike the other tools, where you are required to essentially draw around the area, with this tool you click inside the area you want and and it will make a selection around that area dependant upon your brush size and different colours in that area. It is very simple to add to the selected area if it hasnt all been found, and in the same way it is very easy to subtract a small amount of the area if you have selected too much.

When you have made your selection using any of the above tools, you can chose the 'Refine Edge' button and use the 'Smart Radius' edge detection and the smooth and feather options to alter how sharp the edge of your selection appears and allow the effects to blend in. This will make the photo look much better when modified and it will look more natural. The best way is to trial and error with these options but it seems to work well when you do not go overboard with these options, keeping a more realistic photo.