Page #93 (69. Print Images Using an Online Service)

Chapter 9. Selecting a Portion of an Image

IN THIS CHAPTER:

70 About Making Selections

71 Make Areas of an Image Easier to Select

72 Select a Rectangular or Circular Area

73 Draw a Selection Freehand

74 Select a Straight-Edged Area

75 Select an Object by Tracing Its Edge

76 Select Areas of Similar Color

77 Paint a Selection

Many of the modifications you make to an image in PhotoShop Elements are applied to only a portion of the image. For example, you might want to delete an item from the background or change the color of part of the image. To make modifications to any portion of an image, you must first select the area to change. Selecting an area enables you to make modifications to only that portion of the image without affecting the rest of the image.

In this chapter, you will learn how to make selections using the different selection tools available in PhotoShop Elements. You will see that the tool you choose to make selections is based on the type of selection you want to make. You will learn to select geometric portions of the image (such as a rectangle or an oval) or to select specific objects by tracing the object's borders (such as selecting only the light post in front of a house). You will also learn how to select specific portions of the image based on their color, such as selecting only the red balloons in a balloon bouquet. You will learn how you can use the Selection Brush tool to paint the area of the image you want to select. Or you can use that same tool to paint a sort of mask overlay, in which everything except what you paint is selected. Regardless of how you select a portion of the image, after you have made a selection, all the editing commands you then make affect only that portion. So, you can change the color of only the red balloons to blue or use the Dodge tool on just the light post without affecting the house. For more information about some of the image-editing commands available to you after making a selection, see 86 About Copying, Cutting, and Pasting Data Within a Selection.