Chapter 4. Selecting and Filtering

Making selections is a fundamental part of everyday Photoshop work, whether you’re a photographer, Web developer, animator, prepress pro, or serious hobbyist. Selecting is synonymous with masking because a selection is really just a mask that protects part of your image. Masks, in turn, are sometimes referred to as alpha channels or just channels. So: A selection is a mask is an alpha channel is a channel.

Photoshop has included selection tools since version 1. Although the program’s initial selection toolset was limited to lasso- and marquee-type tools, later versions added everything from color-based selection tools to the Magnetic Lasso to the Quick Mask feature, which lets you paint selections with a brush. ...

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