From the course: Photoshop: Channels and Masks

The best selection tools are commands - Photoshop Tutorial

From the course: Photoshop: Channels and Masks

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The best selection tools are commands

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- You look like a smart person. Which is to say, you probably already know all there is to know about Photoshop's small array of selection tools. And to make sure you don't miss them, Photoshop puts them right there at the top of the vertical toolbox. But just to make sure we're on the same page, here's a refresher. There are the rectangular and elliptical marquee tools, which allow you to select areas in the shapes of rectangles and ellipses. There's the lasso tool, which draws free form selections. Click with the polygonal lasso, to set corners in a straight sided selection, which I personally find to be very convenient. Hover with the magnetic lasso tool to automatically, and sometimes erratically, set points. The quick selection tool looks for edges, also erratically, more on that in a later chapter. And the magic wand tool selects luminance ranges. Now, if that all there was, Photoshop would rather stink at masking. But Photoshop doesn't stink at masking, so there must be more. And that more is made available to us in the form of commands. One such command is color range. Found in the select menu, the color range command is a kind of upgrade to the magic want tool. You click and shift click inside the image window to lift key colors. Then Photoshop looks for similar colors that share luminance levels across color bearing channels. Color range is dynamic, meaning, that it responds to your adjustments immediately. It recognizes gradual, organic edges, and it serves as a wonderful introduction to the larger world of masks. Now, the way that we perceive meaning in an image, where where one image element ends and another begins, is based, in part, on luminance and color ranges. And despite its age, color range was first introduced in Photoshop 3.0, the same version that brought us layers, the command is as gifted at selecting luminance and color as just about any other feature in Photoshop. Color range is one of the few simple, automated functions that actually produces reliable, high quality results. It's that good, as you're about to see.

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