by Julie Walton, Internet Success
February 22, 2007
Do you have Photoshop or similar software, but haven't had time to grow in your Photoshop understanding, not even sure where to start? You will find this to be a very basic tutorial focusing on the following tools: Marquee Tool; Move Tool; Zoom Tool; Rulers and Guides. Other tools and techniques will be discussed in future lessons. I will assume that you have been scratching your head and wishing someone would hold your hand. If you know Photoshop like the back of your hand, you will be frustrated by this tutorial. Sorry this one's for beginners only. I am using Photoshop 7 on a PC.
Starting with the basics - the Photoshop Toolbox contains six major sections: selection and manipulation tools, painting tools, utility tools, color controls, mode controls, and window controls. This lesson will focus on the marquee selection tools.
Tips to keep you sane:
Selecting Rectangular and Elliptical Areas
First of all you will need to have the Toolbox open, so if some computer genius has made this tool disappear, follow these steps. With Photoshop open go to the menu at the top of your window to open the Toolbox - click on WINDOW > TOOLS.
Selection tools are used for creating closed boundaries. Once a selection has been made, editing can only occur within the selection outline.
To remove a selection, or make it inactive, choose SELECT > DESELECT from the menu bar, or press Ctrl-D.
The Rectangular and Elliptical Marquee tools are useful for selecting geometric areas such as boxes or circles. Notice the little black triangle at the bottom right corner of the Marquee Tool. Click your mouse on the Marquee Tool and a drop down menu will appear with four choices:
The tool group shortcut M will function to select the Rectangular and Elliptical Marquee tools. In other words, while working with another tool quickly switch to the Marquee Tool by pressing the M key on your keyboard. If you have the Rectangular Marquee selected in the tool box, the Rectangular Marquee tool will become active, if you were previously working with the Elliptical Marquee tool - that will be the tool your computer recognizes.
Use your Zoom Tool for best selection.
If you want precise selection, click on your Zoom tool, then click on the image. Every time you click on the image, it will increase the magnification percentage. Another way to use the Zoom tool is to hold down the CTRL key and the spacebar, and drag a zoom marquee around the area to magnify. To decrease the magnification percentage use the ALT key while you click on the image. A minus symbol will show up in the magnifying glass as you move the cursor.
Use Rulers and Guides: Rulers and guides assist with selection and placement. Guides appear as lines that float over the entire image and do not print. Selections snap to a guide when dragged within 8 screen pixels. You can turn that feature on and off. From the menu at the top of your window choose VIEW - RULERS. The shortcut keys are CTRL R. To enable the snap command choose VIEW > SNAP TO > GUIDES. For the most accurate readings, view the image at 100% magnification.
To place a guide click and drag your mouse down from the horizontal ruler to create a horizontal guide. Drag from the vertical ruler to create a vertical guide. A blue line will appear (this guide color can be changed). Place your guidelines a bit above and to the left of the area you want to select. Position the cursor so that the cross hair aligns with the top left corner of your bounding box. Once you have your guidelines established, choose your Rectangular Marquee tool and start in one corner, click and drag to the opposite corner and you will have your selection. To get rid of a guideline drag it back to the ruler.
Example: You can download this image of a block to test the marquee technique.
Perfectly Square or Circular Selections: You can constrain the Marquee Tools to create squares or circles by holding down the shift key as you drag the mouse with the Marquee Tool selected.
Moving Selection Marquees: If the area you selected is approximately the right size but not centered over the pixels you wished to select, move the selection marquee by positioning the cursor over the selected area and holding down the cursor to move the selection area. During the selection process if the selection is not in the correct location, you can move the marquee by adding the space bar. Do not release the SHIFT key or mouse button. While still holding down the SHIFT key (if creating a square or circle) and mouse button, hold down the spacebar and drag to move the marquee. Release the spacebar when the marquee is properly positioned. Remember you can always try again. CTRL D to deselect and give it another try.
Right Click to choose effects: With the area selected click the right mouse button and you will see a drop down menu of options, including Deselect; Select Inverse; Feather; Fill and Stroke. To draw a line outlining the marquee selection, choose stroke. Choose the width of the stroke and the color. The default color is the foreground color, to change that color click in the color box that pops up and point to a color, or use the slider to find the color you want. Click OK.
Copy and Paste to New. To copy your selection to a new window make your selection, copy (CTRL C). Create a new document (CTRL N). The image size will be exactly what you copied so just say OK, no need to set the size. Once the new file is opened, paste (CTRL V) or EDIT PASTE.
Deselect - Once you have selected an area, your image will show little dashed lines (marching ants). You can now delete, copy, or affect that area. Now to move on you will need to deselect (otherwise the ants will keep on marching). Choose SELECT DESELECT (CTRL D). The selection area disappears.
Hiding Selections: It may be easier to view the image without the distraction of the marching ants. You can hide a selection marquee by disabling the Show Extras command. Choose VIEW - SHOW EXTRAS to uncheck the command. (CTRL H). The selection marquee is hidden, but not removed, allowing better viewing without distraction by the marquee. To reveal the marquee follow the same steps, CTRL H. Don't forget that you have disabled this function. I can just hear you now. "Why can't I get this to work!" You will need to deselect before moving on to other functions, and with the "marching ants" in hiding, you may not realize you need to deselect.
Selecting from the Center Outward: To simplify selection you can select from the center of an object outward, instead of from the edge.
1. Position the cursor at the center of the object to be selected.
2. Hold down the ALT key as you drag to create an Elliptical marquee
3. In addition, hold down the SHIFT key to constrain the selection to a circle.
4. When you have completed the selection, first release the mouse button, then release the ALT and SHIFT keys. If you release the ALT key before releasing the mouse button, the selection will not be made around a center point, but will be drawn from a corner.
Transforming Selections: Use the Transform Selection command to resize, reshape, move, or rotate the marquee to better fit the area you want to select.
1. Choose SELECT > TRANSFORM SELECTION or with the area already selected right click and choose TRANSFORM SELECTION. Transformation handles appear around the selection.
2. Position the cursor on the corner or side handles, drag to reshape the selection.
3. You can move the selection by placing your cursor anywhere inside the selected area, except the transformation handles, drag and move the selection as necessary.
4. Press enter to apply the changes. Press ESC key if you do not want to apply the changes to the selection.
5. Right click with the transform selection active to see the other options: Free Transform; Scale; Rotate; Skew; Distort; Perspective; Flip
Progressive Beginners: Once you have a handle on the basics, you can dive into layer effects and filters. If you are new to using layers and you don't understand why you are having problems working with your image, keep in mind that you must have that particular layer selected to work on anything that is on that layer. If your layers panel is not open, go to the menu WINDOW > LAYERS. If you want to save an image as a a .jpg or .gif (not a .psd file) you will need to flatten the layers first (LAYER > FLATTEN IMAGE).
Julie's Next Beginners Photoshop Lesson: The Lasso Tools and the Magic Wand Tool
