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The ability to draw the borders of a freeform selection really lets you do fine editing in a photo. Without the freeform selection tools in your application, you can't select a person's face, a scratched area, a shadowy area that you want to lighten, or any other non-geometric region within an image. Most applications offer alternatives for the Lasso or Freeform selector tools — the ability to have the selection follow along like-colored pixels or to draw a polygon (an irregular, straight-sided shape) with the selection tool. With these alternatives, you can't find anything too large, small, or oddly shaped to be selected.
You can easily use the Lasso (in Photoshop and Elements) or the Freehand selection tool (in Paint Shop Pro) if you follow these steps:
1. Click to activate the tool.
2. Move your mouse onto the image and find the spot where you want to begin your selection.
3. Click to begin the selection and then drag, drawing the shape selection that you want.
4. Come back to the beginning of the selection. When you meet or pass the starting point, release the mouse button to complete the selection.
If you release the mouse button anywhere else, the program draws a straight line from that point to the original starting point, closing the selection.
Selecting polygonal areas
When you click the Lasso or Freehand selection tools, options become available. In Photoshop or Elements, the Options bar displays different Lasso modes, as Figure 1 shows. You can find similar options for the Freehand tool in Paint Shop Pro, through the Tool Options palette.
Figure 1: The Lasso tool's Options bar in Photoshop Elements.
With the Polygonal Lasso (Photoshop Elements) or the Point-to-Point Freehand tool (Paint Shop Pro), you can make your selection by following these steps:
1. Click to activate the selection tool.
2. Use the tool's options to set it to Polygonal or Point-to-Point mode.
3. Click your starting point on the image.
4. Rather than dragging, move the mouse to the next point in your polygon — where you want to make a corner and start another side.
5. Continue clicking and moving, each time drawing a new side for your selection, until you come back to your starting point.
6. When you're back to the beginning of the selection, click the starting point to close the shape.
If you can't find the exact pixel where your selection began, just double-click when you get close. The software closes the shape for you, forcing the endpoint to meet the starting point that you can't see or find manually.
You don't have to make your freeform selections a single closed shape. You can draw figure eights or any kind of freeform looped shape, using either the freehand or polygonal modes. Go crazy!
Using magnetic selection tools
Magnetic selection tools create a selection that "clings" to the outline of an object, according to pixel colors that define the object's edge, as you drag. You may find these tools very handy because they let you follow the edge of an object or objects, restricting your selection to very finite areas of the image. Nearly every editing package has a tool like this one. In Photoshop and Elements, it's the Magnetic Lasso; in Paint Shop Pro, you select the Smart Edge option for the Freehand tool.
To use the magnetic selection tools, follow these steps:
1. Click the Lasso or Freehand (or other similarly named tool in your application) to activate it.
2. From the tool's options, choose Magnetic (Photoshop or Elements) or Smart Edge (Paint Shop Pro).
3. Find the spot where you want to begin your selection; click there.
4. Continue making the selection by dragging along the edge of the object or area that you want to select.
The tool adheres to the edges of that object or area, following the like-colored pixels, as you can see in Figure 2.
5. If you see an area coming up where the tool may fail because the pixels aren't diverse, click again to redirect the selection process and then continue dragging.
You can click as often as you like along the way, controlling the direction that the selection takes.
The same process in Paint Shop Pro uses the Smart Edge tool, from which a rectangle follows you as you drag. While you click to continue in a new direction, the previously dragged selection adheres to the shape.
6. Come back to your starting point and click (or double-click if you're not sure you're at the exact starting point) to end and close the selection.
Figure 2: The Magnetic Lasso in Photoshop and Elements sticks to the edges of the objects.
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