Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
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Reveal Layer (R)
shows the current layer (or the whole image if you aren't working
with layers yet) with the selection outline hidden. In other words, this view shows what
you would see with no selection at all.
This section also includes two checkboxes to give you even more help:
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Show Radius (keyboard shortcut: J)
. Turn this on and you see only the outline of your
selection, the part you're adjusting with the Refine Edge dialog box. It's helpful to turn
on this setting after you've used the Radius slider in the Edge Detection section; doing so
lets you see exactly the area that Elements is analyzing for Smart Radius (explained be-
low).
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Show Original (P)
. When you turn on this setting, Elements displays your original im-
age without a visible selection. If the image isn't layered, you'll see the same thing you'd
see in Reveal Layer view described above. This is a great way to go back and see where
you started to make sure you like the effect your Refine Edge edits are having.
The next section is Edge Detection. If your selection is fine except for needing a little feath-
ering or smoothing, you can skip this section, but for tricky selections, this is where the ma-
gic starts:
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Smart Radius
. Turn on this checkbox and Elements goes to work analyzing the edges of
your selection to see whether they're hard or soft, and figuring out what it needs to do to
improve them. You can control the results (to some extent) by using the Radius setting
below this checkbox.
Figure 5-8
shows Smart Radius at work. (This setting may be
turned on when you open the Refine Edge dialog box, but it doesn't affect anything until
you move the Radius slider, described next.)
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Radius
. This slider tells Elements how far from your original marching ants to search for
potential edges. You can adjust this setting either by dragging the slider or clicking where
it says 0.0 and typing a number of pixels. Increasing this setting softens the edges of your
selection to some extent. So if you selected the edge of a roof or other hard object, for in-
stance, you'd want to leave this set to 0.0 (unless the roof is thatched, maybe). The fuzzi-
er the object you selected, the farther to the right you'll probably want to move this
slider.
