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[ 47 ]A. The Select drop-down menu: This allows you to
choose from a wide variety of options as to how to make
your selection.
- Generate a selection by using the Eyedropper
to click on the color you want to select. - Generate a selection by specific colors: Reds,
Yellows, Greens, Cyans, Blues, or Magentas. - Generate a selection by tonal value (i.e., Highlights,
Midtones, or Shadows). - Generate a selection by the Skin Tones in the image.
- Or select the colors that are Out of Gamut.
B. Localized Color Clusters: If you’re using Sampled
Colors (the Eyedropper tool) to make your color selection,
having the Localized Color Clusters checkbox turned on
means Photoshop will only select the colors close to the
color on which you clicked in the general vicinity of where
you clicked. If Localized Color Clusters is unchecked, it
will select the color on which you clicked throughout the
entire image.
C. Fuzziness: The higher the Fuzziness number, the more
lenient Photoshop becomes in adding the colors that aren’t
quite the exact color you chose, but still a close color relative.
D. Range: This slider isn’t always active. If you choose to
use Sampled Colors with Localized Color Clusters turned on
to make your selection, or you choose to select the High-
lights/Midtones/Shadows, this slider will become active. It
does different things depending on which option you’ve
chosen, so you really need to play around with this slider
to see what it does.E. Invert: Once you’re happy with the selection that Color
Range has created for you, you’ll need to click OK. This will
create a bunch of marching ants around the area that Photo-
shop has automatically selected for you. When you create a
mask, the selected areas will be white in the mask and the
non-selected areas will be black. Anything that’s white in a
mask will reveal that area of the layer, and anything black
hides areas. There will be some instances when you want to
have the opposite pixels selected in order to turn them white
in the mask you’re working on. In that case, make sure the
Invert checkbox is turned on.F. Selection Preview: If you want to see the selection on
which you’re currently working in the entire image instead
of just in the little preview window inside the Color Range
dialog, you can turn on one of the Selection Preview options
in the drop-down menu at the bottom of the dialog. This
will turn your whole image into a preview of what the selec-
tion will include/exclude as you work to perfect it.LET’S CREATE A MASK USING COLOR RANGE
Are you starting to see the mighty power behind this tiny
little dialog? It’s truly awesome! But let’s get into a real-
life example. Here’s an image I took on one of my trips to
South Africa.I want to make the sky slightly bluer, so I’ll start by
choosing the Color Range option from the Select menu.
Once inside the dialog, I’ll choose Cyans from the Select
drop-down menu, and click OK. This gives me a bunch of
marching ants around the sky area.