CHAPTER 11 ADVANCED SELECTION TOOLS 163Saving Selections
Selections disappear if you try to select some-
thing else. You can fortunately save a selection
by choosing Selection, Save Selection. Selections
are saved as alpha channels in the Channels
palette (Window, Channels).
The capability to save selections can save you
immense amounts of time. Some selections take
hours to create, such as selecting a person in a
crowd.
You can read more about selections and working
with channels in Chapter 17, “The Importance of Channels.”When Your Software Tools Quit Working
When you begin working with selections, you may
experience moments when the software suddenly
stops functioning. For example, you might try to use
a Brush tool to paint on the image, but the brush
refuses to paint. The software might be ignoring the
Brush tool because you are painting outside a selec-
tion—a selection you created by accident, or one
you forgot about. The brush will only work inside
the selection.
Another cause is a hidden selection. First look care-
fully at the image to see whether a selection is visi-
ble (look for the moving marquee). If you don’t see
one, pull down the View menu. Is the command
View, Show, Selection Edges check marked? When
there is no check mark beside the command
Selection Edges (a minus sign appears instead), it
means that there is a hidden selection in the image.
Choose View, Show, Selection Edges to make the selection visible.
To deselect a selection, use the command Select, Deselect or just press Ctrl+D (xD for
Mac). Your brush will now work anywhere in the image.tip
If you are using Adobe
Photoshop and you acciden-
tally erase a selection, the
command Select, Reselect
restores the last selection you
made.Another cause of
uncooperative selection
tools is that the image might be
in 16-bit format. Choose Image,
Mode and make sure it says
8 Bits/Channel.