Adobe® Photoshop® CC® Bootcamp

Lesson 43 of 118

Introduction to Selections

Lesson Info

Introduction to Selections

Selections are probably one of my favorite things because when we combine it with all the things that we've already learned leading up to this with our layers, our layer tools, our masks, blend if and now with selections, we just keep piling on more possibilities for our editing in Photoshop. So selections in a nut shell, what are selections? Selections allow you to isolate areas of your image and edit them without affecting other areas, of the image as a whole. Some might think, well isn't that the same thing as masking? Well in a way, yes and actually these selections can be used hand in hand with masking. They just make it a little bit easier in the masking process. These are called local adjustments and they're useful when you want to segregate two different areas so just a little reminder here what global is and what local is. A global adjustment is something that affects the entire canvas or the entire image. So think about an adjustment layer, curves adjustment layer, gradient m...

ap, gradient that has no blend modes, it's set to the middle or no, I guess I should say no masks on them at all. That is something that is affecting the entire canvas. When we go into a local selection, a local selection is something that is isolating that one very specific spot and that can be done with selection tools in combination with things like masking so that one area is locally edited and not affecting the global canvas as a whole. These are things like cutouts and sometimes these can be even very simple, subtle things that you're gonna see as we go through this presentation so this right here is what I call power house editing. When you can make a selection, you can make a mask for it, you can add blend if to it, you can add blend modes to it, you can add opacity to it, you have all kinds of possibilities for one simple and single layer in your photograph that allows you to do so much and there are a lot of programs and plugins out there that do allow you to do selections but not many of them do 'em quite as well and quite as easily as Photoshop, especially when we start to get into things like select and mask. So here is a background layer and with this background layer, I can then put anything I want on top of this background layer and I'm gonna do that with things like selections so here is a photograph of my wife where the background is transparent around her head and I want to put any background behind her. Now if you saw the before image of this, it was taken in my basement with one light next to her, with a power outlet behind her head and the windowsill right above her head and it doesn't look very attractive for the shoot but you know, I didn't have a big studio at the time, I didn't have any capabilities to do that so instead I just took her portrait, put it on top of that background and made it a more flattering portrait for her instead of it being in my basement studio, if you want to call it that. But what you can see is that we still have a nice edge and you can still see hair, you can still see what you would normally see in a regular photograph, it's just a very nice, clean selection. Here's another opportunity where you can use selections. This is in Yosemite, looking in tunnel view, looking down tunnel view, gorgeous morning to shoot, the only problem was we didn't have a very good sunrise, nothing beautiful was happening but I had a good quality image that I could use there. If you look at the top of this image, it's all a very white, blown out kinda bright sky. Typically this would be a photograph that you'd be like you know what, I'm just gonna dump it, I'm just gonna trash it but if you have clouds from another image, which in my defense, these clouds were also taken in Yosemite about five hours later, we can then transpose these clouds into this image and make it a little bit more attractive. We need to combine these things in multiple ways though, we can't just apply that sky there and think that everything's gonna be you know, peaches and cream, we have to make it look like they're gonna blend together, that light is gonna match so it's not just take that cloud and just put it in the background there. Now many people have reservations about doing things like this but the idea is that if I waited long enough, those clouds could be there, right? Okay, we'll just call it that, there's your justification, if you waited long enough, you'd have those clouds. So you don't need to throw away a good image like this just because the clouds are bad. Just take cloud photos and put them in there and I've included five cloud photos in this pack that you can download with this course so if you don't have clouds, you can go ahead and use some of mine to transpose them into some of your images that might not be as great as you'd want them to be. Another thing, this is a photo in San Francisco of a bridge, I think that's rather popular, Golden Gate bridge and I like the photo but it just didn't have the feel that I wanted to get out of it so I used selections in a different way. I didn't use selections in a way that I took the sky out and replaced it with a different sky. I used selections for the dark areas in the image, the mid tones in the image and the highlights in the image to push and pull them individually so that I could separate those highlights, mid tones and shadows in my photograph on masks through selections. It's a lot easier to do than you would think. And the result is something a little bit more like this so here was our before, here's our after. Very subtle application but separating the highlights, mid tones and shadows in the image to go ahead and segregate those areas so that I can edit them individually on curve's adjustment layers. So selections don't necessarily have to be used to make, to pull the sky away from an image or to separate a foreground from a background in say a portrait or something like that, they can be used even in subtle ways like this. So we're gonna go ahead and hop into Photoshop and we're gonna start with the absolute basics of some of the selection tools that you have available to you in Photoshop.

Class Description

Adobe® Photoshop® CC® is a valuable tool for photographers, but it can also be intimidating. In this all-inclusive 20 lesson course, you’ll go from opening the program for the first time to creating images that really stand out. Join Blake Rudis, Photoshop® expert and founder of f64 Academy, as he shows you how to maximize your use of Photoshop®. Topics covered will include:

Week 1
• Class Introduction & Bridge, Adobe Camera Raw, Setup Interface, Cropping and Layers
Week 2
• Layer Tools, Masks, Selections, Clean-Up Tools and Shapes & Text
Week 3
• Smart Objects , Transforming, Actions, Filters and Editing Video
Week 4
• Custom Creative Effects, Natural Retouching, Portrait Workflow, Landscape Workflow, and Composite Workflow

Don’t let the many aspects of Photoshop® prevent you from maximizing your use of this amazing app. Blake will help you develop the confidence to use your imagination and create the images that you will be proud to share with your clients.

Software Used: Adobe® Photoshop® CC® 2018

Lessons

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Reviews

a Creativelive Student

Amazing course, but don't be fooled into thinking this is a beginner's course for photographers. The problem isn't Blake's explanations; they're top. The problem is the vast scope of this course and the order in which the topics are presented. Take layers for example. When I was first learning Photoshop (back when we learned from books), I found I learned little or nothing from, for example, books that covered layers before they covered how to improve/process photographs. These books taught me how to organize, move, and link layers before they showed me what a layer was actually for. Those books tended to teach me everything there is to know about layers (types of layers, how to organize them, how to move them, how to move them two at a time, how to move them two at a time even if there are other layers between the two you're interested in, useful troubleshooting tips, etc. ) all before I even know (from a photographer's point of view) what it is the things actually do. The examples of organizing, linking, and moving mean everything for graphic designers from Day One, but for photographers not so much. Blake does the same thing as those books. Topics he covers extremely early demand a lot of theoretical imagination for a photographer who doesn't already know quite a bit about what he is talking about. Learning about abstract things first and concrete things later only makes PS that much harder to understand. If you AREN'T a beginner, however, this course is amazing. I thought it would be like an Army Bootcamp, taking you from zero and building you into a fit, competent Photoshop grunt. Now I think it's more like Army Bootcamp for high school varsity jocks. It isn't going to take you from the beginning, but the amount you'll get out of it is nonetheless more than your brain can imagine. I've been using PS for years to improve my photographs, and even to create the odd artistic composite or two. The amount I've learned in the first week is amazing, and every day I learn something -- more like many things -- which I immediately implement to improve my productivity and/or widen the horizons of what I can achieve. If you ARE a photographer who's a Photoshop beginner, I'd take very seriously the advice Blake gives in the introduction: Watch one lesson, and practice the skills and principles you learn in that one lesson for two weeks. THEN watch the next lesson. You can't do that of course without buying the course, so it's up to you to decide whether you'd like to learn Photoshop and master Photoshop all from the same course. Learning it first and mastering it later will cost more money, but I think you'll understand everything better and have a much more enjoyable ride in the process. As for me? I'm going to have to find the money to buy this course. There is simply way too much content in each lesson for me to try to take on all at once, but on the other hand I don't want to miss anything at all that he has to share.

Esther Gambrell

WOW!!! I've been purchasing CL classes for several years now and have watched HOURS of "How-To Photoshop" classes, but this is the first one I've actually purchased because of the AWESOME BONUS content!!! SERIOUSLY??!!?!? A PLUG-IN??? But not only that, Blake is SO easy to understand, and he breaks down concepts in different ways to connect with different people's learning styles. I REALLY appreciated this approach because I am a LEFT-BRAINED creative that has an engineering background, so I really connected to what Blake was saying. THANK YOU FOR THAT! There are TONS of Photoshop courses out there, but I found this one to be the most helpful in they way Blake teaches concepts so that you know WHY you're doing what your doing. I feel like he taught me how to fish with Photoshop to feed me for a lifetime instead of just giving me a fish to feed me for one day. This is the BEST overall PS course out there!!! Thank you!!!!

Sonya Messier

I'm been using Bridge, Adobe Raw and Photoshop for 12 years. I thought I knew those programs until I started to follow Blake and do this Photoshop CC Bootcamp. This course is AMAZING. I love the way Blake teach, brakes down concepts and tools... excellent teaching qualities! I'm half way in this course and I change all my workflow already. Much better results and better use of what Adobe offer me. This course is an investment! When I will be done, I will listen it again. Great job and congratulations on your success Blake!

1,500+ classes ranging from fundamentals to advanced techniques.

Adobe® Photoshop® CC® Bootcamp

Introduction to Selections

Class Description

Lessons

a Creativelive Student

Esther Gambrell

Sonya Messier