Adobe Photoshop offers us three main tools for making selections: the Marquee, the Magic Wand and the Lasso. The Lasso is one of those tools with several options. To reveal the different modes it offers, click on the tool and hold. The three different modes of the Lasso are freehand, polygonal and magnetic.
When you use the Freehand Lasso, the onus is on you to manually trace the shape of the area to be selected. If using a mouse, it requires a steady hand; not to mention a decent mouse. This mode works best if used in conjunction with a graphic tablet where the mouse is replaced with a pressure-sensitive pen.
As the name suggest, Photoshop's polygonal Lasso is used for drawing polygons, shapes made up of straight lines. This tool is great for selected elements in an image which have straight edges, such as boxed products, pillars and buildings. Unlike the freehand Lasso, where you hold the mouse button down as you outline the area to be selected, with the polygonal Lasso you simply click repeated around the area to be selected and Photoshop joins the points you click on.
Photoshop's magnetic Lasso is the smartest variation that the Lasso tool offers. In this mode, Photoshop recognises edges within the image automatically and creates a shape as you move the cursor around the area to be selected. It creates the shape by automatically placing points around the area to be selected. You can also click yourself to add points if Photoshop occasionally doesn't seem to understand where you want the points to be placed. If Photoshop plain gets it wrong and places a point where it's not suppose to be, just press the Backspace key to remove the point and the segment of the path that comes after it.
Irrespective of which Lasso variation you use to make a selection, Photoshop offers two ways to close and complete the selection. The first method is to click on the point you started from. To make this a little easier to achieve, when you position the cursor in exactly the right place, Photoshop displays a tiny circle next to the cursor. The second method is to double-click at any point. This technique causes Photoshop to unceremoniously close the shape by drawing a straight line from the point on which you double-click back to the point you started from.
When you use the Freehand Lasso, the onus is on you to manually trace the shape of the area to be selected. If using a mouse, it requires a steady hand; not to mention a decent mouse. This mode works best if used in conjunction with a graphic tablet where the mouse is replaced with a pressure-sensitive pen.
As the name suggest, Photoshop's polygonal Lasso is used for drawing polygons, shapes made up of straight lines. This tool is great for selected elements in an image which have straight edges, such as boxed products, pillars and buildings. Unlike the freehand Lasso, where you hold the mouse button down as you outline the area to be selected, with the polygonal Lasso you simply click repeated around the area to be selected and Photoshop joins the points you click on.
Photoshop's magnetic Lasso is the smartest variation that the Lasso tool offers. In this mode, Photoshop recognises edges within the image automatically and creates a shape as you move the cursor around the area to be selected. It creates the shape by automatically placing points around the area to be selected. You can also click yourself to add points if Photoshop occasionally doesn't seem to understand where you want the points to be placed. If Photoshop plain gets it wrong and places a point where it's not suppose to be, just press the Backspace key to remove the point and the segment of the path that comes after it.
Irrespective of which Lasso variation you use to make a selection, Photoshop offers two ways to close and complete the selection. The first method is to click on the point you started from. To make this a little easier to achieve, when you position the cursor in exactly the right place, Photoshop displays a tiny circle next to the cursor. The second method is to double-click at any point. This technique causes Photoshop to unceremoniously close the shape by drawing a straight line from the point on which you double-click back to the point you started from.
About the Author:
Author is a developer and trainer with an independent computer training company offering Adobe InDesign training courses as well as Photoshop training in London and throughout the UK.
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