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Initial Selection in Photoshop

Lesson 3 from: Complex Selections: Furry, Fuzzy, and Hairy

Ben Willmore

Initial Selection in Photoshop

Lesson 3 from: Complex Selections: Furry, Fuzzy, and Hairy

Ben Willmore

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Lesson Info

3. Initial Selection in Photoshop

Learn techniques for isolating furry, fuzzy, and hairy things for Photoshop retouching.

Lesson Info

Initial Selection in Photoshop

Let's get into working with furry, fuzzy and harry, thanks when selecting something like this, I can often use the quick selection tool, but the quick selection tool is primarily good for things that have crisp edges like if you have a car it's not moving that's the thing with the quick selection tool, which just in case you haven't used it, it's this one here you're going to get a brush and you can change the size of that brush the same way you change the size of any brushing photoshopped right now. I'm using the square bracket tools because I'm used to that in the square look like kind of half squares there, right above the return of her enter key and a mac in what I want to do is get the largest brush that would be practical, and what I need to be able to do is paint across this object without getting over spray in the background. So if you look at the most constrained area of this object to be the legs that's where the gets thinnest, I'm going to choose a brush that is small enough...

to be able to pass over that entire leg without bumping into the background, and so my brush is going to be about this big. Because therefore I can paint over the whole thing and not get any on the background then I'm just going to click on the image and it will look at what I click on and it will spread out and try to select things that are similar and brightness similar and color and similar and texture in any time one of those things changes dramatically, it will stop the selection as you can see here with one stripe on our zebra and then I'm just gonna paint over it like this and I'm gonna try to never get any over spray whatsoever on something that I don't want selected, which means never let this brush touched to the background and that's why I need to get her brush of a certain size so I was able to paint on the legs without getting the over spray but know that any time you let go of the mouse button which I just did and click again and again and again because the default setting at the top of my screen upper left is to add to my selection each time I click. If it was set to this, who would create a new selection every single time? And if it was set to that it would take away but the default setting means it's always going to add and so you can let go and click again as many times as you want yes, now I come down here and do the legs, and I won't be concerned if it selects too much, it selects the background I'm not goingto like think about that I failed, but all that means is I'm gonna have to do more work there in a moment. Now, if I want to take away from my selection because it's selected too much, all I need to do is either go to the top of my screen where those icons are I showed you a moment ago and click on the one that's got the minus sign, or I can hold down the same keys that you use for adding and taking away from selections, which means if you were here in the last class, the shift key adds to a selection, the option qi, which is all time windows takes away so I'll hold down the option key right now. Click on the area that I did not want selected, but it selected accidentally, and I'll get rid of it from my selection and in a place like this, I need a smaller brush because otherwise I'm gonna bump into the legs smaller brush still, but this isn't the hard part, so I might not get this part perfect just because it's going to be a waste of our time, I think we can spend our time or, uh with the hard part's so for now I'm going to say that's good enough and there might be part of it I would still refine one thing I would do to double check my selection is type of letter q to get quick mask mode and therefore I can see a nice red overlay and I and see where that red overlay does not match my subject and that's where I might want to further enhance it but typing queue for quick mask I can type it again and turn off at least give me a better idea for what I have so before I come in here and fix the hair, the furry fuzzy and harry parts do have a question yes in terms of the your brushes set for eighty what's a good starting point for doing something like this is it always going to be eighty? My brushes actually had two ninety right now but it's a matter of finding the biggest brush where you can get over the most constrained or smallest part of this. So for me it was the legs where they get skinny and I said what's the biggest brush I could use where I can still paint across the leg without getting over spray and the background and if my brush was any bigger than this it would start touching the background as I painted over the legs and so that's what defined it so if I had something that was more like an elephant, elephants have much wider legs. I could get up, get away with larger brush. It's, just a matter of what's. The biggest brush I could use, where I wouldn't get over spray on the background, never touches the background. And so the the thickness of the elements in this are going to define what brush size I need. I can always use a huge rush. When I go across the body. Let go get a smaller brush to go across the legs, if you want.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Ben Willmore - Complex Selections - Reference Guide.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

Lonnie
 

Selections have always been my nightmare, Ben Willmore is a Godsend. His easy to comprehend teaching method and techniques make learning fun and the lessons taught stick. I now own others in his lineup of classes with more on my wishlist. Thank you Ben for making Photoshop Selections less daunting and complicated than it can sometimes be and thank you Creative Live for having one of the best teachers out there. I highly recommend this course to any and all.

a Creativelive Student
 

Terrific course with detailed and *clear* instructions on these essential skills. So happy with my purchase!

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