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Chapter 4. Creating a Selection

In This Chapter

• Discovering the selection tools

• Painting selections the easy way

• Refining your selections

• Keeping selections for later use

• Using the Vanishing Point feature

Using Photoshop to create compositions that may not actually exist and retouching images to improve them is common. What you don't want is obvious retouching or a composition that looks contrived. (The exception is if you intend an image to be humorous, such as putting baby Joey's head on Daddy's body.)

That's where the selection tools come in. In this chapter, you try out several selection methods and see how to use the selection tools to make images look as though you haven't retouched or edited them. Even if you're an experienced Photoshop user, this chapter provides a plethora of tips and tricks that can save you time and help make your images look absolutely convincing.

Getting to Know the Selection Tools

You create selections by using selection tools. Think of selections as windows in which you can make changes to pixels. Areas not selected are masked, which means that they're unaffected by changes, much like when you tape window and door frames before painting the walls. In this section, we briefly describe the selection tools and show you how to use them. You must be familiar with these tools in order to do anything in Photoshop.

Note

As with all Photoshop tools, the Options bar (viewed across the top of the Photoshop window) changes when you choose different selection tools. The ...