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While using editing software for your digital video project, you often need to focus attention on a particular part of the image. In other words you must control where and how the edits take effect. For example, if you want to increase or decrease the contrast in a certain area of the image and nowhere else, you need to select that area before using the contrast-adjustment tool so that you don't end up changing the contrast in an area that's fine as is.
All image editing programs provide selection tools. Some provide more than others, and some provide more options for using these tools than others do. A variety of selection tools and options is one of the marks of a flexible and powerful application. The names of the tools may change from application to application, but the jobs that these tools perform remain the same.
All good image editors offer the following tools for selecting content:
- Marquee: This type of selection tool lets you select geometric shapes — rectangles, ovals, and in some cases, vertical rows or horizontal columns that are a single pixel wide.
- Lasso: This freeform selection tool often comes in three varieties:
• A basic lasso
• A magnetic lasso that adheres to certain colored pixels
• A polygonal lasso that lets you select areas with multiple straight-lined sides
- Magic Wand: This type of selection tool selects by color, based on a starting pixel or group of pixels. Need to make everything that's blue turn green? The Magic Wand is the selector tool for you.
- Paintbrush or Mask Select: Some applications offer a paintbrush-like tool that lets you make a selection by painting. Other applications let you enter a Mask mode, where your standard Brush tool acts as a selector to create a mask of what you want to include in the selection. When you switch back to the normal mode, your mask has turned to a selection. Alternatively, you can specify that what you don't paint turns into a selection instead.
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