Photoshop Elements 5: The Missing Manual

120 Photoshop Elements 5: The Missing Manual

Selecting Irregularly

Sized Areas

The basic Lasso tool

The theory behind the basic Lasso tool is very simple. Click the tool, and your cur-

sor changes to the lasso shape shown in Figure 5-8. Just click in your photo, and

then drag around the outline of what you want to select. When the end of your

selection gets back around to join up with the beginning, you’ve got a selection.

In practice, it’s not always so easy to make an accurate selection with the Lasso,

especially if you’re using a mouse. A graphics tablet is a big advantage when using

this tool, since tablets let you draw with a pen-shaped pointer. (There’s more

about graphics tablets on page 473.) But even if you don’t happen to have a graph-

ics tablet lying around, you can make all the tools work just fine with your mouse

once you get used to their quirks.

It helps to zoom the view way in and to go very slowly when using the Lasso. (See

page 77 for more information on changing your view.) Many people use the regu-

lar Lasso tool to quickly select an area that roughly surrounds their object, and

then go back with the other selection tools, like the Selection brush or the Mag-

netic Lasso, to clean things up.

TIP If you want to draw a straight line for part of your border, hold down Alt and click the

points where you want your straight line to start and end.

If you want to get out of the Lasso ...