Photoshop® Elements 8 For Dummies®

Chapter 7. Making and Modifying Selections

In This Chapter

• Creating selections with the Lasso tools, Magic Wand, and more

• Resizing smartly with the new Recompose tool

• Using the Cookie Cutter tool

• Eliminating with the Eraser tools

• Working with the Magic Extractor command

• Saving and loading your selections

If all you want to do is use your photos in all their unedited glory, feel free to skip this chapter and move on to other topics. But if you want to occasionally pluck an element out of its environment and stick it in another, or apply an adjustment to just a portion of your image, this chapter's for you.

Finding out how to make accurate selections is one of those skills that's well worth the time you invest. In this chapter, we cover all the various selection tools and techniques. We give you tips on which tools are better for which kinds of selections. But remember that you usually have several ways to achieve the same result. Which road you choose is ultimately up to you.

Defining Selections

Before you dig in and get serious about selecting, let us clarify for the record what we mean by defining a selection. When you define a selection, you specify which part of an image you want to work with. Everything within a selection is considered selected. Everything outside the selection is unselected. After you have a selection, you can then adjust only that portion, and the unselected portion remains ...