Photoshop Elements Class

Adobe Photoshop Elements 10: The Editor 3 Brush Tools and Selection Tools

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Foreground and Background Colors

Photoshop Elements keeps two colors at a time handy for painting and filling: The

Foreground color is the color painted by paint and type tools, and the Background color is

the color applied to the Background layer when you erase or delete something. The current

pair of colors is shown at the bottom of the Tools panel; the default foreground and

background colors are black and white respectively.

Red Eye Removal Tool

Project Bin

Edit Tab of Panel Bin

Tools Panel

Move Tool

Zoom Tool

Hand Tool

Eyedropper Tool

Lasso Tool

Magic Wand Tool

Quick Selection/ Selection Brush Tool

Horizontal Type Tool

Crop Tool

Cookie Cutter Tool

Straighten Tool

Spot Healing Brush Tool

Clone Stamp/Pattern Stamp Tool

Eraser Tool

Brush Tool

Paint Bucket Tool

Gradient Tool

Custom Shape Tool

Blur/Sharpen/Smudge Tool

Sponge/Dodge/Burn Tool

Color Picker

Effects panel

Layers panel

Options Bar: This area contains various settings for the active tool

Undo History panel:

Smart Brush Tool

Image Window

Marquee Tool


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Choosing Colors: The Eyedropper and the

Color Picker

Click the Foreground or Background color

square on the Tools panel to launch the Color

Picker. Choose a color by:

Typing numbers corresponding to a

specific color in either the H, S and B

boxes or the R, G and B boxes. (These are

two different systems for describing

specific colors.)

Clicking anywhere in the Color Slider (the

vertical “rainbow”) or sliding its sliders.

The color you choose appears in the large

square Color Field, where it is mixed with white, black and gray. Click anywhere in the Color Field to

select your shade.

Sometimes you want to match a particular color from a photo. The Eyedropper lets you capture

these colors. Place the eyedropper over the source photo with the tip on the color you want to capture,

then click. The Foreground Color will now match the pixel you clicked on.

Save a color as a Color Swatch

Open the Color Swatches panel by clicking

WindowColor Swatches, and set the color

you want to save as the Foreground Color.

Click the menu button ( ) in the corner of

the Color Swatches panel and choose New

Swatch.

On the Color Swatch Name dialog box, type

a name for the new color, then click OK. The

color now appears at the end of your set of

swatches.


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Brush Tools

Hint: You can change the brush size by clicking the left and right

bracket keys ([ and ])

Four tools are stacked together in the Tools panel:

Brush Tool: The basic brush tool paints smooth, anti-aliased

lines in the Foreground color. You can select various brush shapes, sizes and degrees of hardness (see

Brush Properties below).

Impressionist Brush: Distorts an existing image by adding “impressionist style” brush strokes to give the

illusion of hand-painting. Try using the Impressionist Brush on a duplicate layer, then changing the

opacity to control the effect’s intensity.

Color Replacement Tool: This tool replaces a particular color with another color. The results are similar

to other tools that may be easier to control.

Pencil tool: This tool works like the basic Brush Tool except that it draws only hard-edged lines.

Customizing the Brush Tip

The first control on the Options bar shows the shape of

currently selected brush tip. Click the drop down arrow to

choose a tip from the thumbnails shown below. (The brush

tip’s name is displayed when you

float the mouse pointer over a

thumbnail.)

Several sets of brush tips are

available. To choose a different set

click the dropdown arrow beside

the name of the current tip

collection, then choose the set you

want. Brush sets are named after the artistic effects they try to mimic.

Brush size can be changed from the brush size control just to the right of the

brush tip gallery. Type a pixel number directly in the box, or click the dropdown

arrow to use a slider control.


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Brush hardness: 0%, 50%, 100%

More Brush Options

The control on the right hand end of the Options bar opens a menu for setting various brush properties.

The preset brushes produce their effects using these settings, but

you can use them to create

your own custom brush effects.

Fade: To fade out a stroke as

you paint it, set the slider to

values between 1 and 999.

Lower numbers cause the brush

stroke to fade out faster.

Hue Jitter: This setting produces a paint stroke whose

colors randomly mix the Foreground and Background

colors. Lower settings favor the foreground color, only

mixing in a bit of the background color; higher settings

produce the full range of possible color combinations.

Scatter: Increasing the Scatter setting lets the brush place

marks farther away from the mouse stroke itself.

Spacing: Spacing settings range between 1% and 1000%. They

change the amount of overlap between any two adjacent color

spots painted by the brush. The smaller the spacing, the more the

painted stroke looks like a single line.

Hardness: This setting controls the crispness of the brush edge: when

hardness is set at zero, the brush stroke becomes very soft and fuzzy. When it

is set at 100%, the brush’s edge is sharp and distinct.

100% Hue Jitter, soft and hard brushes 100% Hue Jitter vs. 10% Hue Jitter

Fade set at 25, soft and hard brushes

Sample colors

Scatter (and Hue Jitter) at 50%

Spacing at 25%, 100%, 400%


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First selection Second selection

About Selections

Photoshop Elements gives you a wide variety of selection tools – the sheer number and variety of these

tools tells you how important selecting is. Selections are used to limit the area of a photo affected by

tools, or to pick out the part of a photo to copy and paste for a montage, etc.

Photoshop gives a lot more “weight” to selecting than most programs do. For example, making a

selection is considered to be an action, just as much as drawing a line or performing a copy/paste is.

Selecting steps show up in the Undo History panel, and selections can be saved as

a part of a .psd image file, and reloaded later to re-select the same area.

Selections can also be altered in a variety of precise ways.

One difference between Photoshop and Photoshop Elements is that in Elements,

the smallest unit you can select is a single pixel. The “full version” of Photoshop

allows users to select partial pixels, for perfectly smooth edges.

When you make a selection, the selected area will be outlined with “marching

ants”.

To remove a selection, type Ctrl+D, click SelectDeselect, or press the Escape key.

Simple Selections

Select All: To select the entire image, type Ctrl+A, or click SelectAll.

Marquee Tool: Right-click the Marquee Tool button and

choose the Rectangular or Elliptical Marquee Tool. Place the

mouse pointer over the image, press the mouse button and

drag your hand at an angle to select a section of the photo.

Hold the Shift key while dragging to select a perfect circle or square.

Modifying a Selection

The buttons on the selection tools’ Options bar control what happens when you have an area selected,

and you make another selection:

New Selection ( or ): If this button is active, the new selection will

replace the old one. Result: blue/purple circle. (Also, choose this tool to

move the selection by dragging inside its border.)

Add To Selection ( or ): When this is chosen, the new selection will

be added to the existing one. Result: Red, blue and purple areas.

Subtract From Selection ( or ): When this is chosen, the newly

selected pixels will be removed from the original selection. Result: Red area

only.


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Intersect with Selection ( ): Click to create a selection out of overlapping portions of two selections.

Result: purple area only.

Note: A selections doesn’t have to be made with a single tool. You can change tools at any time, then

add to or subtract from the selection.

Lasso Tools

These tools let you select various shapes using the mouse.

The Lasso selects any shape, freehand. It probably gives you the

most precise control over your selection.

The Polygon Lasso builds selections from multiple straight lines;

The Magnetic Lasso snaps to edges (lines of contrasting color) on

your image

For all the lasso tools, the tail end of the lasso is the focus-point which draws the line.

Magic Wand Tool

Select this tool and click on your photo. All pixels of a similar color will be

selected. The Options bar contains two important adjustments to this

tool:

The number in the Tolerance box specifies how

many shades the Wand will select when you click – the smaller the

number, the fewer shades get selected.

Checking the Contiguous box requires the pixels to

touch; unchecking it removes this requirement. For example, with

Contiguous unchecked, clicking a yellow flower in one corner of the

photo also selects the same color of yellow on a car in the other corner of the photo.

Quick Selection Tool

This tool is stacked with the Selection

Brush Tool (below). Select it, then drag on

the part of your image that you want to

select. The Quick Selection Tool logically attempts to find the edges of

whatever object is being chosen, and selects it. If it selects an area you

don’t want, click the Subtract from Selection button ( ) on the Options

bar and then click or paint on the part you want to exclude.

Business end

One pass with the Quick Selection Tool got the whole flower, despite

its jagged edges.

One click of the Magic Wand Tool selected the same shade of pink all

over the flower. Clicking other areas of the petals will add in more

shades.


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Selection Brush Tool

This tool has two modes, Selection and Mask. In

Selection mode, it automatically selects the area you

paint (drag) over, surrounding it with the usual

marching ants.

In Mask mode, Photoshop shades the part of the

image that is not selected with a red, translucent

overlay. Painting with the Selection brush removes

that part of the mask, thus selecting that part of the

image.

Refine Edge

After making a selection, you can modify it by clicking the Refine Edge

button on the Options bar (Lasso, Magic Wand, or Quick Selection

Tools) or by clicking SelectRefine Edge. The dialog box that appears

lets you smooth, feather and/or contract the selection.

Smoothing: Removes the jagged edges from your selection, replacing

them with a smooth curve.

Feathering: Softens/blurs the edges of

a selection. This is useful when copying

and pasting, because the feathered

edge blends gently into the new

background. (Usually 1-3 pixels is

enough.)

Contract/Expand: makes the selection larger or smaller by the selected number of pixels.

Masked (unselected) area, with red overlay

Area being selected with brush

Feathered, 4 pixels Before Feathering

Before Smoothing Smoothed, 15 pixels


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With Anti-Aliasing

Without Anti-Aliasing

More Selection Refinements

Anti-aliasing: This smoothing method is turned on by default for most

selection tools. Normally it is left on, unless you want a visually-hard

edge.

Modify: Click SelectModify to view the Modify commands. The only new command

here is Border: use it to deselect the inside of the selected area, leaving only a set

number of pixels around the edge selected.

Inverse: Click SelectInverse to deselect the selected parts and select the deselected parts in your

photo.

Transform Selection: Make a selection, then click SelectTransform

Selection. The selection will be surrounded by a bounding box with

handles at the corners and edges. Drag the handles to stretch or shrink

the selection. Click the green check-mark to finalize your transformation.

Save a Selection

Click SelectSave Selection, and give the selection a name. Saved

selections can be reloaded even after the file has been closed, by clicking

SelectLoad Selection.

Copy and Paste a Selection

Click EditCopy or type Ctrl+Copy to copy a selection. Click EditPaste or type Ctrl+V to paste the

selection. The pasted pixels will automatically appear on a new layer.

Photoshop Elements Class

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