PHOTOSHOP TUTORIAL: SELECTION SECRETS 2

Written by Trevor Morris ( tmorris@fundy.net | http://user.fundy.net/morris/ )

As stated in the first Selection Secrets tutorial, mastering selections is undoubtedly one of the most
essential and powerful aspects of Photoshop. Below are some more extremely useful (and not very wellknown) selection techniques: once you learn them, you will wonder how you ever got by without them
Here are a couple of notes before you begin:
l
l
l

I tend to prefer hotkeys (e.g. [Ctrl+D] ), but I have provided equivalent alternatives (e.g. Select
Deselect - which denotes a menu command) wherever possible
Mac users: Ctrl = , Alt = Option (e.g. Ctrl+Alt+D =
Option D), and right-click = Option click
You may download this tutorial as a printable Acrobat document (
) from the downloads section
(below)

CONTRACT ALL
While the selection tools in Photoshop are extremely powerful, there is one thing which really irritates
me: if you select the entire canvas via Select All [Ctrl+A] (Select Select All), the Contract (Select
Modify Contract) command is disabled (for whatever reason)! One way to get around this annoyance
is to do the following:
1. Select All [Ctrl+A] (Select Select All)
2. Move the selection down one pixel and right one pixel (using the arrow keys
next to the keypad)
3. Contract (Select Modify Contract) the selection by one pixel
4. Move the selection up and left one pixel. You should now have a selection
which is one pixel away from the canvas edge on all sides
5. Contract (Select Modify Contract) the selection by one less than the
amount you originally required (i.e. if you originally wanted to contract by 10
pixels, enter 9 since the selection has already been contracted by one)

POLYGONAL / FREEHAND LASSO

Here is another useful selection secret: you may alternate between the Polygonal and
Freehand Lasso tools [L] (or vice versa), while you are in the middle of creating a
selection, by holding down the Alt key.

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FAVOURING COLORS
Indexing an image can be tough business. You often have to
play with all available settings to achieve satisfactory results and sometimes that may not even be enough. For example,
when indexing an image containing a high color count (or when
trying to force an image to use less than 256 colors for the
sake of file size), bad dithering patterns / colors may result. So,
what does all this have to do with selections? Well, if you use
(any of) the selection tools to select / isolate problematic
colors, Photoshop will favour / consider these colors while
choosing the palette.

For example, the Happy Face (shown here at 600% size) was indexed to 16 colors, and while the
results are not bad ("Without Selection"), we can do better. Photoshop appears to allocate an equal
number of colors to both the highlights and shadows, but since the shadows have a higher contrast, we
should try to allocate more colors to this area. In this case, I used the Freehand Lasso tool [L] to select
a region of pixels from the shadowed area, and then reindexed the image (using the exact same
settings). Although the results are not astounding (after all, it is only a 16 color image), I think the image
does look better ("With Selection").

TRANSFORMING A SELECTION
Photoshop has always allowed you to transform a selection which contains pixels, however, version 5
introduced the ability to transform the selection outline itself (independent of any pixels within the
marquee). But, regardless of whether you are transforming a selection or pixels, you should familiarize
yourself with the following:
l
l
l
l
l

Shift-drag a bounding box node to do uniform deformations (i.e. to maintain aspect)

Alt-drag bounding box nodes for proportional transformations (i.e. transform from the center)
Ctrl-drag nodes to skew / shear the selection (i.e. perspective deformation)
Drag the mouse inside the transform bounding box to move the selection (use the Shift key to move
along 45 lines)
Drag the mouse outside the transform bounding box to rotate the selection (use the Shift key to
rotate in 15 increments)

Tip: Try using combinations of the above keys (e.g. the example below uses Ctrl+Alt+Shift-drag on a
node to do a proportional, uniform, perspective deformation - you might need a third hand for that
one ;-).
As an example, let's transform a selection to create a triangle (a frequently asked question among new
Photoshop users):

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1. Use the Rectangular Marquee tool [M] to draw a square selection (by holding
down the Shift key)
2. Right-click on the selection and select Transform Selection (Select Transform
Selection)
3. Ctrl+Alt+Shift-drag the top-right node down toward the center-right node (to do
a proportional, uniform, perspective deformation). Press Enter / Return to
accept the transform
4. You should now have a triangular selection. Fill [Alt+Backspace] (Edit Fill...)
the selection
5. Drop [Ctrl+D] (Select Deselect) the selection
Note: While this technique is a quick (but not always precise - the perspective transform is a little
buggy) way to create a triangle, there are many other ways to accomplish similar results. For example,
check out this tutorial by Mark Monciardini.
I hope that you find these techniques useful and easy to follow. To learn more about selections, be sure
to check out Selection Secrets! Feel free to send me any comments you have about this tutorial.

DOWNLOADS
The table below contains all of the downloads associated with this tutorial.
File Name

Version Size

Type Description

SelectionSecrets2.pdf 25/02/01 38KB PDF Adobe Acrobat document (printable version of this
tutorial)
Note: Mac users may need to Option click on the above link. PC users may need to right-click on the
above link and select Save Target As...
Note: To read the PDF document, you will have to install Abode Acrobat Reader.

Copyright 2000-2001, T.Morris ( tmorris@fundy.net )

Website: GFXTM ( http://user.fundy.net/morris/ )
Last modified: 25/02/01

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