Photoshop Elements 5: The Missing Manual

Chapter 5: Making Selections 133

Changing and Moving

Selections

Changing and Moving Selections

Now that you know all about how to make selections, it’s time to learn about some

of the finer points of using and manipulating them. Elements gives you several

handy options for changing the areas you’ve selected and for actually moving

images around once they’re selected. You can even save a tough selection so you

don’t have to do that again.

Inverting a Selection

One thing you often want to do with a selection is invert it. That means telling Ele-

ments, “Hey, you know the area I’ve selected? Well, I want you to select everything

except that area.”

Why would you want to do that? Well, sometimes it’s easier to select what you

don’t want. For example, suppose you have an object with a complicated outline,

like the group of buildings shown in Figure 5-18. Say you want to put this build-

ing on your letterhead. It may be difficult to select. But the sky is just one big block

of color. It’s a lot faster to select the sky with the Magic Wand than to try to get an

accurate selection of the building itself.

To invert a selection:

1. Make a selection.

Usually, you first select what you don’t want if you’re planning to invert your

selection. You can select with any tool that suits your fancy.

2. Go to Select ➝ Inverse.

Now the part of your image that you didn’t select is selected.

Figure 5-18:

Left: Say you want to ...