So, what is your favorite "lasso tool"?? Believe it or not, I often wonder if I am alone when it comes to my choices when using tools in programs?? I tend to have my favorites. When I am sitting there inching away, cutting out a section of a pic I either want or don't want, which can sometimes take an eternity so it seems, I often wonder if I am indeed "missing" a much faster way of selecting the area I am trying to emphasise??? ;-)

Well, I basically use the lasso that helps me the most (pretty obvious). For instance, I use the polygontal tool quite frequently because there are many bumpy edges I need to make smooth. This is very helpful for that reason. I do not like the magnetic lasso simply because it is inacurate. When I try to select something, the little ants move all over the place, not highlighting what I wanted it to. I really do not recommend this lasso. Hey I have a question. How often do you use the pen tool? I have never used this. What do you use it for? Is it helpful? Same thing with the history brush tool. How often do you use this? -Adam

Funny, that was another thread I had wanted to post?? I have actually never used the pen tool either, wonder if anyone does?? Guess it's there just in case you need it?? Same with "history brush tool"?? Both good questions?? Are we missing something here folks?? I DO however, love that Airbrush!! Now THAT I use a lot!! ~3D ;-)

First of all, I used to try using the lasso tool or other selection tools to cut out an object precisely. I quit doing that, because I found it is much easier and more flexible to do the following: Cut out the image roughly with the lasso or other selection tool; Invert the selection and delete everything else on the layer; Add a layer mask, setting it to Reveal All; Using the painting tools, paint on the layer mask with black to mask out the areas you want to delete, paint with white to un-mask any areas where you went too far. When you've got it like you want it, you can remove the layer mask and accept the changes. I use the history brush a lot for retouching and restoring photos. If you want to make someone look younger, for example, do the following: Do a heavy Gaussian blur on the image, more than it takes to blur out any wrinkles. In the history palette, click on the state BEFORE you applied the blur. The blur will disappear. In the history palette, click in the little window just to the left of the "Gaussian blur" state. This will make the blur the source for the history brush. Click on the history brush in the Tools Palette. Set the opacity to a low value, about 15% or even less. You can always set it higher if you need to later. Select a soft-edged brush that's appropriate to the size of the areas you want to work in, i.e. wrinkles around the eyes, nose and mouth. Paint in the wrinkled areas. This will gradually blur out the wrinkles and smooth them in to the rest of the face. Gromit

My goodness this is very helpful!! Thanks Gromit!! ;-)

THANK YOU SO MUCH GROMIT!! I copied the whole tutorial and kept if for later use. I never knew that I was missing out on a cool tool. THANX AGAIN!

Regarding selective blurring with the history brush, you can do the same thing with sharpening. Over-sharpen the image, move back one step in the history palette, then use the sharpened state as the source for the history brush. It often helps to sharpen certain definite boundaries in faces, particularly eyes, mouth, nose, eyebrows. Just be sure to use a low opacity setting on the tool so you make changes gradually. It's like a woman putting on makeup, you want to cover certain areas and enhance others. And speaking of sharpening, another procedure I do a lot is to convert the image to LAB color before I sharpen. Then I only do the sharpening on the Lightness channel. In LAB, The Lightness channel is a gray-scale channel that contains only the image detail, no color information. The A and B channels contain only color info. One of the problems with sharpening in color images is that artifacts will "bloom" as you sharpen, i.e. you'll see glowing pixels suddenly jump out at some point. If you sharpen only on the Lightness channel in LAB, this doesn't happen and you can sharpen more than you normally could in RGB or CMYK. You can also work some wonders on really bad posterized images by heavily blurring on the A and B channels in LAB. Since the detail is all on the Lightness channel, you won't blur the image boundaries, only the color. If you need to, you can apply a smaller amount of blur to the Lightness channel, then selectively sharpen certain areas with the history brush. It is an art, no doubt about it, and it takes some practice. For a bad example of this stuff, look at http://www.crfranklin.com/photo.2.gif for a real crappy "before" pic and http://www.crfranklin.com/photo.3.jpg for a less crappy "after" pic. Again, not a good pic in any case. Gromit

3DSprite In referrence to your question concerning the uses of the pen tool. It is mostly used to draw in a selection path around some object in the picture (same as the masking tools). The difference is that, if you save the path(s), when you import the picture into Illustrator, Freehand, etc. the path(s) can be used to mask out all but the object(s) they surround. Regular alpha channel masks won't do this for you in those programs since they are part of the bitmap (the paths are actually a vector drawing). Since most of the final composition work is done in page layout programs, you can see the advantages this would bring as opposed to masking out each object and saving it as a separate file. Other than that, it's easier to make alpha channel masks. Hope this helps... -Jim

Thank you so much!! You have all been so very helpful and very informative!! I too am saving this thread for later reference,....thanks again!! ;-)

I can't believe nobody's mentioned Quick Mask! I rough out selections either with the lasso or with colors or channels. Then I go into Quick Mask mode - which allows you to paint a mask on your image as gromit suggests, without having to create a mask layer, etc. Rough your selection. Enter Quick Mask mode by clicking the right hand mask button under the color selection tools in the pallette (over the window/fullscreen buttons). Then use paint tools and eraser tools to add or subtract to your mask (which by default appears as a red "gel" over your image). Click the left-hand mask button to exit Quick Mask and see your selection as "marching ants" again. You can then save your selection, float it and make a new layer, invert it and delete the background, or whatever. I rarely make a selection without it. -sk