Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Saving Selections
You can tell Elements to remember the outline of a selection so that you can reuse it again
later on. This is a wonderful, easy timesaver for particularly intricate selections. It's also
handy if the “Text on Selection” tool ( Artistic Text ) misbehaves, forcing you to restart Ele-
ments to get it working again; just save the selection before you quit Elements, and then re-
load it to pick up where you left off.
NOTE
Elements' saved selections are the equivalent of Photoshop's alpha channels . Keep that in
mind if you decide to try tutorials written for Photoshop. Incidentally, alpha channels
saved in Photoshop show up in Elements as saved selections, and vice versa. You can
save a selection, load it again, and then save the file with the selection active to have it
appear as an alpha channel in other programs that understand alpha channels, like Mi-
crosoft Word or Apple's Pages.
To save the current selection, choose Select→Save Selection, name the selection, and then
click OK. When you want to use that selection again, simply go to Select→Load Selection,
and there it is waiting for you.
TIP
When you save a feathered selection and then change your mind about how much feather
you want, use the Refine Edge dialog box to adjust it. You can also save a hard-edged se-
lection, load it, and then go to Select→Feather to add a feather to it. That way, you can
change the feather amount each time you use the selection, as long as you remember not
to save your change to the selection.
Editing a Saved Selection
If you need to tweak a saved selection, it's probably just as easy to start your selection over,
but you can edit saved selections if you want. This can save you time if the original selection
was really tricky to create.
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