Master the art of digital manipulation by learning how to use selection tools effectively in Photoshop. This tutorial provides a comprehensive guide on how to accurately select and remove specific parts of an image, particularly focusing on the lasso tool, polygonal lasso tool, magnetic lasso tool, quick selection tool, and the magic wand tool.
Key Insights
- The lasso tool in Photoshop provides freehand capability to create selections. Feathering can be adjusted to change the sharpness of the selected area's edges.
- The polygonal lasso tool allows the creation of polygonal selections by clicking to create new points for the polygon. This tool can be particularly useful for selecting specific shapes, but may not be as effective for selections with rounded corners.
- The magic wand tool samples the color that is clicked and creates a selection of pixels of similar color within a set tolerance. This tool is ideal for selecting and removing backgrounds with minimal variation in color.
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In this video, we will continue going through selection tools with our “Crane Hook Removed” Photoshop file open. Moving to our Tools Bar, we will first select the Lasso Tool.
Essentially, the way the Lasso Tool works is that we have freehand ability to create our selection. Therefore, if we click and drag a selection, once we release the mouse, we will see that it creates a selection based on the area we drew. We also have the ability to change our feathering.
Let us create a new selection and delete it. Then press CTRL + D on the keyboard to deselect. We will see that we have removed part of the blue background.
While this could be helpful in removing the background, I do not always trust my freehand ability with the cursor and mouse. Therefore, let us continue moving through the selection tools. Next, we will work with the Polygonal Lasso Tool.
The way this tool works is by clicking—each time we click, we create a new point for the polygon. When we see a circle on the bottom right of the cursor, we will know it is ready to complete the selection. Let us press DELETE on the keyboard to remove part of the blue sky.
While this could be helpful for selecting certain shapes, because this crane hook has rounded corners, it may not be the most effective tool to remove the blue background. So, let us move on to the next selection tool. We will now work with the Magnetic Lasso Tool.
This tool allows us to click once, and it will automatically detect contrast between different colors. In this case, it works between the blue background and the hook. I will close off this polygon.
When we see the circle icon on the bottom right of the cursor, it means we are closing the selection. While this can be helpful for snapping to edges and creating selections, I do not always trust my freehand accuracy. It is useful in certain situations, but not in all cases.
Let us press CTRL + D to deselect this area. Next, let us go to the Quick Selection Tool. I often use this tool when I am working with a variety of shapes and objects.
Essentially, it works by allowing us to change the brush size in the Options Bar. Let us change it to 50. We will now see it on our screen.
If we click and drag, Photoshop attempts to predict the area we are trying to select. For example, if I want to highlight part of the image, the tool will add it because “Add to Selection” is selected in the Options Bar. If we switch to “Subtract from Selection, ” we can remove areas from the selection by clicking and dragging.
Let us go back to “New Selection.” If we click and drag, we will see this tool is helpful in removing the blue background. However, if we zoom in, we will notice it also selects part of the bar.
Therefore, we will switch back to “Subtract from Selection” and click and drag to refine the selection. While it is not perfect, it is certainly helpful and easy to use. Again, we will want to subtract from this part of the image.
Now we have a relatively good selection that we could delete. Let us zoom back out and press CTRL + D to deselect. Let us now review our final selection tool—the Magic Wand Tool, found in the same Tools gallery as the Quick Selection Tool.
The Magic Wand Tool is probably the best tool for this job because it samples the color we click on and uses a tolerance setting to select pixels of similar color. If we use the Magic Wand Tool with a tolerance of 32 and click on the gray middle, we will see that it selects many pixels of the same or similar color. If we click on the metal above, we will see that it again selects within a tolerance of 32.
Let us now increase the tolerance to 60, which means it will include a wider range of similar pixels. If we click again, we will see it selects many more pixels. We can repeat this and observe the difference tolerance makes.
Because of this feature, the Magic Wand Tool is likely the best tool for selecting the blue background, since the blue color is fairly consistent. Let us set our tolerance to 20 and press ENTER, then click the blue background. As we can see, it selects only the adjacent blue pixels on the left side.
We will hold SHIFT on the keyboard until we see a plus sign on the cursor and continue clicking to add to our selection. Finally, we will select the blue area between the hook. With all of the blue selected and none of the hook, we can press DELETE on the keyboard, then press CTRL + D to deselect.
As always, let us toggle the visibility of our original layer, and we will see that we have successfully removed the background without removing any of the hook.
Let us save our work by pressing CTRL + S. In the next video, we will be working to create a panorama out of multiple images.
See you there.