Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows: The Missing Manual

Selecting with a Brush

Elements also gives you two very special brushes to help make selections. The Selection brush has been around since Elements 2, so if you've used Elements before, you probably know how handy it is. These days it often takes a back seat to the amazing Quick Selection tool, which makes even the trickiest selections as easy as doodling. The Quick Selection tool automatically finds the bounds of the objects you drag it over, while the Selection brush only selects the area directly under the brush cursor.

The Quick Selection tool and the Selection brush are grouped together in the Tools panel, and they appear in both Full Edit and Quick Fix because they're so useful. You may well find that with these two tools you rarely need the other selection tools.

It couldn't be easier to use the Quick Selection tool:

1. Activate the Quick Selection tool.

   Click it in the Tools panel or press A, and then choose it from the Tools panel's pop-out menu. It shares a Tools panel slot with the regular Selection brush. Their icons are very similar, so look carefully—the Quick Selection tool looks more like a wand than a brush and it points up, while the regular Selection brush points down.

2. Drag within your photo.

   As you move the cursor, Elements calculates where it thinks the selection edges should be, and the selection outline jumps out to surround that area. It's an amazingly good guesser. There's no need to try to cover the entire area or to go around the edges of your object—Elements does ...