Photoshop CS3 Selection Tools

Photoshop CS3 Selection Tools

The Marque tools

The Marque tools allow you to select geometric areas in images. The following table describes the different types of marquee tools.

Tools	Description
Rectangular Marque tool	Used to select geometric areas such as boxes
Elliptical Marquee tool	Used to select geometric areas such as circles. You can move and transform the selection marquee.
Single Row Marquee tool	Used to create a border as pixel-wide row
Single Column Marquee tool	Used to create a border as a pixel-wide column.

Floating Selection and Fixed Selection

A floating selection refers to a select group of pixels that float above the background image when moved from their original spot. The background will remain unaffected when you move the same selection to another spot. However, if you deselect the pixel group, it will become a fixed selection and get fixed at the current position.

Cropping a Row or Column of Pixels

You need to use the Single Row Marquee tools to select extra row or column. This is useful when you have to delete an extra row or column of pixels from an image that includes just a bit of the background.

The Lasso Tools

The Lasso tools are used to select complex areas in an image. The following table describes the different lasso tools.

Tool	Description
Lasso  tool	Used to make free form segments of a border.
Polygonal Lasso tool	Used to make straight-edged segments of a section border. You can also use it to select areas that are made up of straight lines.
Magnetic Lasso tool	Used to select portions of an image with complex edges that set against a high-contrast background. It allows you to accurately select image areas that contain many colors

The Magnetic Lasso Tool Options Bar

The Magnetic Lasso tool options bar contains several additional options that affect how the Magnetic Lasso tool functions.

Option	Description
Feather text box	Allows you to specify how soft the resulting edges will be when a selection is completed.
Anti-alias check box	Allows you to specify the detection width in pixels.
Contrast text box	Allow you to specify a value that enables the Magic Lasso tool to detect the edges in an image.
Frequency text box	Allows you to specify how often Photoshop places points on the path.

The Quick Selection Tool

The Quick Selection tool used tool is used to make a accurate selection of complex shapes using an adjustable brush. When you drag the brush, the selected areas expands along define edges of the image. You can also hold on the shift key and click around the selection to select.

The Magic Wang Tool

The Magic Wand is used for selecting pixels of an image that are similar in color or brightness with a single click. I mean, when the background has a solid color. You can use this tool to select contiguous pixels by using the contiguous check box on the options bar.

The Tolerance Option

The Tolerance option allows you to specify the Magic Wand tool’s sensitivity to color differences. In Photoshop, each pixel within an image is coded with color and brightness information. While using Magic Wand tool, you can specify the range or tolerance of pixels selected to ensure that only pixels similar in color to the pixel you clicked with the Magic Wand tool will select; the lower the tolerance, the smaller the area that the tool will select.   

The Anti-Aliasing Feature

Anti-aliasing is a feature that allows you to smoothen edges by placing light pixels around a selected object. It is often used on text to create the illusion of smoother curves.