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Visual Selections

 

For those of us that have spent some time in Photoshop know how unhelpful the ‘marching ants’ selection preview is. It is hardly a good representation of the actual selected area. Now if you are selecting a definite area with hard edges, then what you see is what you get. But what if it isn’t? What if you wanted to create and edit a selection visually. Meaning what if you you could see everything the selection covers. Even the soft edges and transparent areas. This is where Quick Mask comes in. Quick Mask is a temporary color representation of your selection. Simply press the ‘Q’ key when using a selection tool. You can use paint brushes and gradients to create selections visually where the colored area can represent either the selected or unselected areas. These type of selections would be impossible with just regular selection tools. The mask itself is, by default, a reddish-orange color. However, by double clicking the Quick Mask icon at the bottom of the toolbar you can modify the mask color and opacity. When done modifying the mask, simply press the ‘Q’ key once more to return to the standard marching ants. Even though the marching ants have a definite edge, the softness of the selection is still maintained.

4 Comments

  1. Steve said on — November 17, 2008 @ 1:48 pm

    Great tip! I have never mastered the Quick Mask method, but I will have to try it!

  2. Brad Walters said on — November 17, 2008 @ 5:28 pm

    QuickMask is a must have skill for photographers. Most other tools that mimick what quick mask does, are too crude.

  3. Martin said on — November 18, 2008 @ 4:51 am

    A nice additional tipp:
    If you want to change the size of – for example – a rectengular marquee just press “Q” and then “Command/Strg+T”. After that change the size and press “Enter” and “Q” again.

    This is – for me – much faster then going to Selection -> Transform Selection!

    Best regards
    Martin

  4. porno seyret said on — December 19, 2008 @ 5:54 am

    A nice additional tipp, thank you so much

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Create A Composite Layer

If you have a multilayer composition and you
want to apply an effect to all the layers at once, don’t flatten the layers–use a composite layer instead. Hide the layers you want excluded, and press Shift-Command-Option-E (PC: Shift-Ctrl-Alt-E). A new layer will be created at the top containing a merged copy of all the visible layers.

Another option is to create a new layer at the top of the stack and make it active. Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) each layer you want to include to make those layers active, as well. Press Option-Command-E (PC: Alt-Ctrl-E).
by Colin Smith

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