Use Selection Tools in Photoshop CS6

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Video: Use Selection Tools in Photoshop CS6

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You're watching VisiHow. In this video, I'm going to show you how you can use selection tools in Photoshop CS6 in Windows 7. To begin, you should either create a new document or open an existing one, which you can see I've done here.

1. 1
   Look at the list of layers near the bottom of the menu on the right-hand side. Our document has two layers. We have a background layer and a layer of watermelons. This is a separate layer that we can move around. Ensure that whichever thing that we want to select is on the layer that is selected. Otherwise, we might try to select something from one layer, when we're actually working on another layer. The selection would happen on that layer, even if we couldn't see it. Be aware of that.

   

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2. 2
   Look at the left-hand column. We have a lot of little pictures.

   

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3. 3
   Click on the icon that looks like a magic wand. It's called the "Magic Wand Tool". It's the fourth one down.

   

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4. 4
   Hover over the canvas. The cursor looks like a little wand hovering over the screen.

   

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5. 5
   Click on something on the canvas. The tool will select an area. It is generally made up of spots that are the same sort of color.

   

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6. 6
   Click on the arrow at the top of the column of options running down the left side.

   

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7. 7
   Click on the selected area and drag to move it.

   

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8. 8
   Step backwards by pressing "Alt" and "Ctrl" and "Z" on the keyboard. We have our selected area once again.

   

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9. 9
   Click on the "Magic Wand Tool" again.

   

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10. 10
    Hold down "Shift" on the keyboard and click with the mouse to start adding more areas to the selection. This is a bit like when we hold "Shift" while clicking on files in a folder. It tells the program that each click should expand the one selection, rather than create a separate selection. This method is good if we want to be quite precise. However, it can create a problem in a lot of cases. Let's show this.

    

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11. 11
    Press "Ctrl" and "C" to copy the selection.

    

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12. 12
    Press "Ctrl" and "J" to paste the selection into its own new layer.

    

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13. 13
    Click on the new layer to view it. Ours looks like it's quite ripped. We can get very interesting effects, which actually, we quite like. However, it looks like the edges are very rough. This is nothing like a vector image.

    

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14. 14
    Step back until the image is whole again. We can use "Alt" and "Ctrl" and "Z" to do this.

    

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15. 15
    Right-click on the "Magic Wand Tool".

    

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16. 16
    Click "Quick Selection Tool".

    

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17. 17
    Note that the icon in the left-hand toolbar now looks like a little paintbrush with a dotted line. This tool is more general and it's not so easy to select something very specific with it.

    

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18. 18
    Click on the image and drag. It makes assumptions about what we're looking to include. This is good if we want to select a background around something. For example, some of our melons look to be in the background, and are more shadowed. We might want to select them and take them away from the foreground watermelons.

    

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19. 19
    Release and continue clicking and dragging. We can just click to add more to the selection. We don't have to hold down the "Shift" key. It just assumes for us. This tool is a great timesaver. It depends what we're going for.

    

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20. 20
    Click "Select". It's an option in the navigation bar that runs across the top of the program.

    

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21. 21
    Click "Deselect" if desired. This will deselect everything we selected.

    

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22. 22
    This is a VisiHow video. I've just shown you how you can use selection tools in Photoshop CS6 in Windows 7. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to add them to the section below, and we'll do our best to get back to you.

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If you have problems with any of the steps in this article, please ask a question for more help, or post in the comments section below.

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