Adobe Creative Cloud Design Tools All-in-One For Dummies

Chapter 4: Creating a Selection

In This Chapter

• Discovering the selection tools
• Painting selections the easy way
• Refining your selections
• Keeping selections for later use
• Using the Vanishing Point feature

Photoshop is well known for its capability to create compositions and for its retouching capabilities. What you don't want to see in a finished product is obvious retouching or compositions that look contrived. (The exception is if you intend an image to be humorous, such as putting baby Joey's head on Daddy's body.)

This is where a solid knowledge of the selection tools pays off. In this chapter, you try out several selection methods and see how to use the available tools to make images look as though you haven't retouched or edited them. Even if you're an experienced Photoshop user, this chapter provides a plethora of tips and tricks that can save you time and help make your images look absolutely convincing.

Getting to Know the Selection Tools

You create selections by using selection tools. Think of selections as windows in which you can make changes to pixels. Areas not selected are masked, which means that they're unaffected by changes, much like when you tape window and door frames before painting the walls. In this section, we briefly describe the selection tools and show you how to use them. You must be familiar with these tools in order to do anything in Photoshop.