Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 5. Making Selections
One of Elements' most impressive talents is its ability to let you select part of an image and
make changes to only that area. Selecting something tells Elements, “
This
is what I want to
work on—don't touch the rest of my image.”
You can select a whole image or any part of it. Using selections, you can fine-tune images in
very sophisticated ways: Change the color of just one rose in a bouquet, for instance, or
change your nephew's festive purple hair back to something his grandparents would appreci-
ate. Graphics pros will tell you that good selections make the difference between shoddy, am-
ateurish work and a slick, professional job.
Elements includes a bunch of different Selection tools. You can draw a rectangular or circu-
lar selection with the Marquee tools; paint to create a selection with the Selection Brush; or
just drag in your photo with the Quick Selection tool and let Elements figure out the exact
boundaries of your selection. The Transform Selection command lets you resize selections in
a snap, and the Refine Edge dialog box is a great help with difficult selections like hair and
fur. The Content-Aware Move tool lets you move an object to a different location in your
photo, while it analyzes the image to create plausible new material to fill in the hole where
the object was originally. And Elements 13 gives you an interesting new tool for adjusting
your selections after you've made them: the Refine Selection Brush, which lets you easily re-
shape any selection; it's explained on
Reshaping Selections
.
NOTE
If you've used older versions of Elements and you're looking for the Magic Extractor, un-
fortunately it's gone now. You'll find some workarounds on
Extracting Objects
.
For most selection jobs, there's no right or wrong tool. With experience, you may find that
you prefer working with certain tools more than others, and you'll often use more than one
tool to create a perfect selection. Once you've read this chapter, you'll understand all of Ele-
ments' Selection tools and how to use them.
