Photoshop® Elements 8 All-in-One For Dummies®

Chapter 2. Modifying and Transforming Selections

In This Chapter

• Adding and subtracting from a selection

• Using the Select commands

• Feathering selections

• Saving and loading selections

• Moving and cloning a selection

• Transforming selections

For most people, getting the perfect, pristine selection on the first attempt is pretty difficult. A little too much caffeine or not enough shut eye, and that once steady hand is no longer so. Fortunately, Elements, being the compassionate digital-imaging friend that it is, understands this and doesn't make you settle for inaccurate selections. You have many ways to modify and transform selections to refine them to the point of near-perfect accuracy. You can add or remove pixels from your selection, scale the selection outline, smooth out jagged edges, or switch what's selected for what isn't. In this chapter, we'll show you how how to clean up and modify your selections and enable you to nail the desired element with precision.

If you haven't already checked out the first chapter of Book IV and gotten a good grasp of how to create selections in the first place, you may want to start there.

Modifying Selections

Although the selection tools, such as the Lasso, Quick Selection, and Magic Wand, usually do a fair job of capturing most of the desired selection, making a really accurate selection often requires some amount of modification and cleanup. If you give ...