Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
The Output To drop-down menu gives you six choices that are all explained below.
You can even save your extracted selection to a brand-new file, if you want.
4.
When you like what you've done, click OK
.
If you decide not to refine your selection's edges after all, click Cancel. To undo all
the changes you've made in this dialog box and start over, Alt-click/Option-click the
Cancel button (it turns into a Reset button).
The Refine Edge dialog box is packed with options. It may look a bit confusing at first, but
like most things in Elements, it's logically arranged. The dialog box is divided into four main
sections: View Mode, Edge Detection, Adjust Edge, and Output. As in the Quick Fix win-
dow, you don't need to use all the adjustments (only the ones you want), and generally your
best bet is to start at the top and work down.
The first section, View Mode, is full of useful ways to get the best possible look at your se-
lection. As mentioned above, you have the Hand and Zoom tools on the left, and the View
menu, which gives you seven different ways to see your selection; click the View thumbnail
to see your options. Each view has a keyboard shortcut that makes it easy to switch among
them without using your mouse, or you can keep tapping the F key to cycle through them all:
▪
Marching Ants (keyboard shortcut: M)
shows the regular selection outline that you
normally see.
▪
Overlay (V)
displays the red mask overlay you get when using the Selection Brush in
Mask mode (
The Selection Brush
)
. The red area is the
unselected
part of your image.
This view is a good way to check for holes and jagged edges.
▪
On Black (B)
shows just the selected area against a black background.
▪
On White (W)
displays your selection against a white background. In most cases, this
view works well. Elements usually starts you off in this view the first time you use
Refine Edge. (After that, Elements remembers which view you used last time and auto-
matically selects it.)
▪
Black and White (K)
shows only the outline of the selection in white against a black
background so you aren't distracted by the details in your image.
▪
On Layers (L)
shows your selection against the transparency checkerboard (see
Using
