 | The freehand selection type is easy to understand but
difficult to use accurately. Just drag around the edge of the area you
want to select - when you let go of the mouse a straight line back to
the starting point will automatically finish your selection.
|
| The point to point selection type is so easy to understand and
use that I recommend you choose this selection type most of the time. See for yourself how this
works by choosing it and then clicking a few points on the image. When you want
to close the shape.
You might think this would be a bad tool to use to select areas with curved ages
but you can follow the curves fairly accurately as long as you are patient and
willing to click, click, click frequently as you work your way along the curves.
|
| The smart edge and edge seeker selection types uses the power of the computer to try to
detect the edges of the shape you are trying to select. As with the point to
point selection type just click, click, click you way around the shape you want
to select. The closer together your click-points are the more accurate the
selection will be. The difference between these selection types and the previous
one is that Paint Shop Pro will not simply join your click-points with straight
lines - the computer will attempt to detect the 'edge' between the click points.
The difference between the smart edge and edge seeker selection types
is that the smart edge type is designed to detect high
contrast edges (that could be a high contrast of light or of
colour) while the edge seeker tries to detect low contrast
edges. Also, the smart edge type gives you a 'corridor' which you
should enclose the edge in to give the computer some help finding
the edge. Obviously, it is easier for the computer to detect a high
contrast edge than a low contrast one. If you use the smart edge
type on the dolphin you will probably find it does not work along
the dolphin's head or under its belly for there is not enough
contrast there between the dolphin and the water. Try this tool for
yourself - you may like using this type but I usually prefer the
point to point selection type myself. |
Test your selection skills by using the point to point selection type
with smoothing set to 5 and a feather size of 1 to select Sugar,
the dolphin in the photo below. Ignore the hoop.
If you ever click in the wrong place just press the delete key to delete the
last click-point. Don't forget to double-click when you are ready to close the
shape. Don't worry if your selection isn't very accurate - you can add to or subtract
from the selection after your first rough selection is complete. To add
to the selection, switch to the freehand selection type, then hold down the Shift
key while you select the area to be added (look for the little '+' sign while
you hold down the shift key). Complete the selection before you let go of the
shift key. To subtract from the selection using the lasso tool, hold down
the Ctrl key while you select the area to be subtracted (look for the '-'
sign).
Now we want to put a copy of the selection into a new layer -
there are two ways of doing this, so choose ONE of the following:
- Choose Selections > Promote Selection to Layer or just
Ctrl-Shift-P - this will place a copy of the selection in a new
layer.
- Copy the selection (Ctrl-C and then paste into a new layer
with Ctrl-L. This will leave the 'marching ants' around the
original selection - deselect with Ctrl-D to get rid of the marching
ants.
Choose the move tool
and drag the dolphin around to convince yourself that you really
have made a copy of the dolphin image. Make sure the Layers palette
is visible (press F8 if necessary) to confirm that the new dolphin
image really is in a new layer - it will probably be called
'Promoted Selection' and it will be on top of the background image
called Background or 'Raster 1'.
In the layers palette, make sure that the new layer is selected
(click on the new layer if necessary) and then reverse the contents
of that layer with Image > Mirror to make the new dolphin
face left.
Then you can make the
dolphin into a baby dolphin by choosing the raster deform tool
- make sure
you are in 'scale' mode and then use the right mouse
button to drag a corner handle (if you use the left mouse button
then there is a danger you will distort the shape of the dolphin).
You can even rotate the baby dolphin if you want by dragging the end
of the line that reaches our from the dolphin's central pivot point. Drag the baby dolphin to wherever you want it to be. If you're bothered by the piece of hoop
that you can still see crossing the baby dolphin's body then do
something about it! (Clone brush??)
Now that Sugar has some company you can save your picture as a jpeg.
If you'd like to visit Sugar, he lives in Sugar Key, one of the Florida
Keys...
is much more useful
than the (standard) selection tool
since
it can be used to select the very complex shapes
that we often find in photographs. Don't forget to set feathering and anti-aliasing
before you use each tool, as explained in the Selections page (click 'Up'
above). Before you use the freehand selection tools, it's a good idea to zoom in
as much as you can while making sure that all the area you wish to
select remains visible. This will help you make an accurate
selection. Making an accurate selection with this tool can take a long time -
but if you want to do a good job then you may not have much choice. The easiest
way to zoom in is to point at the point you want to zoom in on then
roll the mouse wheel slowly.
