Chapter 5. Making Selections
One of Elementsâ most impressive talents is its ability to let you select part of your image and make changes only to that area. Selecting something tells Elements, âHey, this is what I want to work onâdonât touch the rest of it.â
You can select a whole image or any part of it. Using selections, you can fine-tune images in very sophisticated ways. You can change the color of just one rose in a whole bouquet, for instance, or change your nephewâs festive purple hair back to something his grandparents would appreciate. Graphics pros will tell you that good selections make the difference between shoddy, amateurish work and a slick professional job.
Elements offers you a whole bunch of different selection tools to work with. You can draw a rectangular or circular selection with the Marquee tools, for instance; paint a selection on your photo with the Selection brush; or just draw a line with the Quick Selection tool and let Elements figure out the exact boundaries of your selection. When youâre looking to pluck a particular object (a beautiful flower, say) from a photo, the Magic Extractor works wonders. And Transform Selection lets you resize your selections in a snap.
For most jobs, thereâs no right or wrong tool. With experience, you may find you prefer working with certain tools more than others, and youâll often use more than one tool to create a perfect selection. Once youâve read this chapter, youâll understand all the different ...
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