Making Pixel Selections in Adobe Photoshop CS6

Making Pixel Selections in Adobe Photoshop CS6: Video

This video shows making selections in Adobe Photoshop CS6.

Making Pixel Selections in Adobe Photoshop CS6: Overview

There are several ways that you can make pixel-based selections in an image file. Photoshop provides you with several tools that you can use to select pixels in an image. You have a set of marquee selection tools, a set of lasso tools, and the magic wand tool, among others. There are also a few commands that we can select from the Menu Bar that will also allow you to make pixel-based selections.

After you make an initial selection, making another selection will typically replace the previous selection. However, we do have some additional selection options that allow us to add secondary selections to a primary selection, subtract a secondary selection from a primary selection, find the intersection of multiple selections, or find the union of multiple selections. Once you make a selection, you can move the selected area by simply clicking into the middle of the selection and dragging the selected area to a new location before releasing it.

To make selections using the Menu Bar, you can use the “Select” menu command. Before you make a selection, you must ensure that you have the appropriate layer of the image selected in the Layers Panel. Click on the layer in this panel from which you would like to make a selection, first. Then you can freely select using the Menu Bar or one of the tools available in the Toolbox.

If you wish to select all of the pixels in an image, you can select “Select| All” from the Menu Bar. To deselect a selection, select “Select| Deselect” from the Menu Bar. If you are using one of the marquee tools or the lasso tool, you can also simply click one time into the image outside of the selected area to deselect a selection, as well. You can select your previous selection that was made by selecting “Select| Reselect” from the Menu Bar. If you make a selection in an image and then wish to select everything except what you had initially selected, you can select “Select| Inverse” to select everything that wasn’t selected, excluding the original selection that you made.