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Photoshop Tutorial on making selections

This is a Fee Adobe Photoshop Tutorial that uses curves for making selections. The technique is perfect when the “wand” does not get the selection you want.

In this tutorial I show how to select a sky with trees on the horizon.

Photoshop tutorial on making a selection

Step 1. open image.

Step 2. copy background to new layer.
on copy layer go to: Image/Adjustments/Desaturate.

Step 3. on desaturated layer open curves: Image/Adjustments/Curves -slide the left (white) input triangle toward the middle. Slide the (black) input triangle toward the middle. In my example I wanted to keep the phone line  deselected (it is located on top left of my sky). So I kept an eye on how my selection was as I worked toward the middle with the triangles. Hit Ok when you get a decent black and white image.

Step 4. Use the magic wand to select the sky. Turn off contiguous. Turn the tolerance to a low number like 10.  With contiguous turned off the area between the trees and sky will be selected, but you will also get some minor selections in the grass -no problem. With the selection still active enter quick mask mode (short cut is Q). Select the brush and paint over the grass area adding to the mask (use black to add to mask).

Exit quick mask mode (short cut is Q) and save selection (name it sky on a new channel) -Select/Save selection …click ok and deselect the selection.

Step 5. Delete the desaturated layer. Now you only have the original background.

Step 6. Click on the original background layer and load the selection: Selection/Load Selection/ and under Source Channel use the fly out menu to select sky.

Step 7.  With the background layer active and the selection active go to: Layer/Layer Via Copy (Apple J) -this will create a copy of the sky on a new layer.

Step 8. With the background layer active, load the selection “sky”. Go to- Select/Inverse. and then go to : Layer/Layer Via Copy. this will create a copy of the land on a new layer.

You now have three layers. The background. One layer with the sky and One layer with the land.

After a few color adjustments here is my final image. I even save my phone line.

There are a number of tips and tutorials for using Photoshop to make a selection and depending on the photograph some techniques will work better than others. This tutorial is another technique to add into your selection tricks.

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This is a SUPER FAST PHOTOSHOP TIP for cleaning up an image that has a gray tint to the white surrounding the subject; which is a common problem with scanned images. The great thing about this technique is you do not need to make a selection.

To illustrate lets start by looking at a before and after:

Step 1. In Photoshop open an image that needs correcting. I have the info pallet next to the image to demonstrate the area around the subject is not a true white. If it was true white the numbers circled would be 255.

Step 2. Using the text menu, goto: Images/Adjustments/Curves (shortcut on a mac is to hold down the apple key and press M). Use the horizontal slider and slide it to the left. As you move the slider to the left, you will see the light gray start to fade from the surrounding area. Below are the curves settings I used:

Step 3. Here is the image after the curves, I have the info pallet next to the image to demonstrate the area around the subject is a true white. The numbers circled are now 255. You do have to be careful because you will clip some of the light gray from the image.

Step 4. You can see how I lost some of the midtones on top of the image. But this technique is about speed with acceptable results.

Step 4b. Here are the results using a selection

So next time you have a gray tint in a white area around a photo, use this Photoshop tip to turn the gray into white.