Lasso Tool

The Lasso Tool is one of the most useful of tools when it comes to selecting part of an image and will always be used, even by the experts.

• Open image number 03.jpg for the next of the free Photoshop tutorials.
  Bring up the Layers palette with F7.

• Select the Lasso Tool in the toolbox. In the Feather box in the top options bar, set a value of 1. We are going to select the hand and the sleeve and prepare the cut-out for a different background.

• To enlarge the image to a convenient size of 100%, double-click on the Zoom Tool in the toolbox.
  Put the cursor, which is now shaped like a little lasso, on the edge of the hand and carefully drag it around the hand and sleeve. It needs to be done in one go, because if the mouse is released, the starting point and the end of the Lasso join up.

• As you are going round with the Lasso, if all the hand subject is not showing on the screen, keep the mouse pressed down and hold down the space bar. The cursor changes temporarily to the hand symbol and enables you to move the image around the screen with the cursor. When the space bar is released, the cursor changes back to the Lasso and you can continue.
  A little practice necessary here but it does work.
  
  
  

• The moving dotted line is referred to as 'marching ants'.

• In the Layers palette, the image is locked as the Background.
  As such there is a restriction on how it can be manipulated.
  Double-click on the Background. In the dialogue box which appears, the layer will now be called Layer O.
  Click OK. It is now a normal layer and allows more scope.

• At present, the hand is selected. We want the area outside the hand to be selected so that it can be deleted. Go to Select > Inverse.

• Press the Backspace/Delete key to delete the area inside the 'marching ants'.

• Go to Select > Deselect. The hand is now ready to be placed on a new background as the next part of this Photo Shop tutorial.

• Open image number 04.jpg, the grass background.

• Go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur.
  Enter an angle of 25 and a distance of 50 pixels. Click OK.

• Choose the Move Tool (V) from the toolbox.
  Hold the cursor on the hand/stopwatch image and drag it across on to the image of the grass background. Position it so that the sleeve is neatly against the bottom left corner of the background image.

Lasso Tool - 2

• For this part of the Photo Shop tutorials, open image number 05.jpg and select the Lasso Tool from the toolbox.
  The cursor changes appropriately.

• Draw a loose selection around the goldfish, as illustrated.

  Beginners often find the Lasso Tool a bit tricky at first but practice soon pays dividends.
  
  

  

• To help make the selection accurate, we'll use the Quick Mask Mode.

  Click once on the Quick Mask Mode icon in the toolbox.
  A red mask appears inside the selection. Red is the default colour but as it is a bit similar to the orange of the fish, it would be more convenient to have a colour which gives a better contrast.
  
  

• Double-click on the Quick Mask Mode icon. Click on its colour box to bring up the Color Picker where you can choose a strong blue colour. It should still be distinguishable from the blue water. Click OK.
  The Quick Mask Options palette now displays the chosen blue. Leave the opacity at 50%. Click OK.
  The mask on the image is now blue and
  it is easier to see the fish's outline.
  
  

• Select the Brush and choose a hard brush from the top row in the Brushes palette. We'll use 100% hardness here and put on a feather afterwards. The colour boxes in the toolbox will now be black and white and as we are going to erase we want white to be on top. If white is not on top, then press X.

• Zoom in on the image to increase its magnification.
  A quick way to increase the view to 100%
  is to double-click on the Zoom Tool in the toolbox.

• Carefully use the Brush to erase the blue mask along the edge of the fish. For large open areas, a large brush is useful, but a smaller brush is required for small tight corners.

• A shortcut to increase the Brush size by one step is to press the square bracket key, ].
  Pressing the other square bracket key [ reduces the brush size by one step.

• If the erasing brush goes over the edge of the fish, press X, which reverses the foreground and background colours. Then paint back in that part of the mask.
  When the whole edge is accurately outlined, just the fish will be covered by the mask.
  

• Select Standard Mode in the toolbox or press Q and the 'marching ants' will surround the fish.

• Choose Select > Feather and a feather of 1.
  Press F7 to show the Layers palette. We'll put the fish on a new layer by going to Layer > New > Layer via Copy.

• Go to Select > Deselect. The fish is now its own transparent layer above the background. The chances are the edge of the fish has picked up a little of the background which needs to be tidied up, but that will come in a later lesson.....

Brush Tool
Color Picker
Layers
Clone Stamp Tool
Marquee Tools
Lasso Tool, Quick Mask Mode
Magic Wand Tool

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