Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® & Photoshop® Workflow Bible

Chapter 15. Working with Selections

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Understanding selections and how they're used

• Comparing and contrasting Photoshop CS3's main selection tools

• Using Feather and Refine Edge to fine-tune selections

• Saving complex selections so you can use them again

• Using selections to transfer parts of an image from one photo to another

• Using selections to isolate the effects of Photoshop filters

• Understanding and using Smart Objects and Smart Filters

Selections have been touched on a few times in this book. I don't really like to mention something without explaining it. But I don't want to confuse you by trying to explain everything at once. Photoshop, or any other complicated system, is so powerful because of the interaction of several different concepts. Talking about one thing without mentioning another sometimes is difficult.

The reason I was able to get away with using selections without explaining them is that the concept of selections is one of the few that seems to be familiar to new users. By that I mean that most people have seen the "marching ants" that define a selection, and they understand that selections are usually created around objects in an image.

If that doesn't apply to you, fear not. By the end of this chapter, you'll not only know what a selection is, you'll also know when to use one selection tool rather than another and how to combine selection tools to create complex selections. You'll also know how to modify the edge of a selection with the new Refine Edge command ...