Teach_Yourself_Photoshop_Elements_2

ADVANCED IMAGE EDITING SKILLS

M

any photo-fixing tasks involve

making selections. You may need

to select a specific region such as

a bland sky so that you can replace

it with something more exciting, or simply

adjust the sky’s over-exposed tones without

altering the correctly exposed landscape.

Alternatively, you may want to select a

person from one shot and composite them

into another to produce more creative results.

As you’ve seen from this chapter, the

Toolbox compartments are crammed full of

selection tools, from the primitive Lasso to

the more intelligent Quick Selection tool. All

of these tools produce a selection marquee

• a line of animated dashes that defines the
  shape of the selected area. After making a
  selection you may find that the marquee
  doesn’t include the entire subject, and it may
  also be a bit ragged around the edges.
  You can modify selection marquees
  using main menu commands. If you go to
  Select>Modify you can access commands
  such as Contract. This enables you to
  tighten the marquee around the edges of
  your subject to lose any background pixels

that are clinging to the outline. You can

also use the Smooth command to create

less jagged selection edges. These menu

selection commands are a bit fiddly to use,

so Elements also provides an easier and more

effective way to alter selection marquees –

the Refine Edge command.

When you make a selection, you’ll notice

the Refine Edge button in the Tool Options.

As a rule, if a tool creates a selection, you’ll

be able to fine-tune it by clicking the Refine

Edge button. The Refine Edge tool can also be

summoned via Select>Refine Edge.

Use Refine Edge

to improve selections

Improve your selections with Refine Edge

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