Not every selection is perfect - and ready to work with right after you've made it.
Sometimes, depending on - how the selection was made, there could be parts of the image - that were selected that you didn't want.
Or there might be areas - that were not selected that need to be added to the selection.
Hi, I'm Seán Duggan, a photographer, - Photoshop author and instructor.
Knowing how to modify a selection - by adding to it or subtracting from it, - is an essential skill for working with selections - in Adobe Photoshop.
Let's check it out.
One of the things - that makes this image so dynamic is that it's backlit.
This creates a dramatic shadow and lightens the plume of snow - behind the snowboarder.
But the backlighting has also resulted - in the subject being a bit too dark, which is not uncommon in backlit photos.
We can fix that - by selecting the snowboarder and lightning just that area.
Since the snowboarder - is the obvious subject in the scene, I'll go to the Select menu and I'll choose Subject.
Overall, Photoshop did a good job, but there are areas - where too much of the background has been selected - by the front of the snowboard as well as part of the helmet - that was not selected.
There's an area of the glove over on the right side of the photo - that's also not selected.
But I'm not going to worry about that - because most of that part of the glove is covered with snow.
I'll start with the top of the helmet.
Let me zoom up for a closer view.
I'll go over to the Toolbar, and I'll choose the Lasso Tool.
In the Options bar for this tool, I'll click on the second icon - from the left, which will allow me - to add on to the existing selection.
With the Lasso Tool set to Add, I'll draw a lasso - around the top part of the helmet to add that into the selection.
I'll loop back around.
Come back to where I started - to close the loop.
In addition to the add icon - in the Options bar, you can also hold down the Shift key - to add to a selection.
Next, let's deal with the area - by the snowboard where too much of the snow - in the background was selected.
I'll hold down the Spacebar - and drag on the image to reposition it on screen, - so we have a better view of that area.
I'll stay with the Lasso Tool, but this time - I'll click the third icon from the left, which will allow me - to subtract from the selection.
The keyboard shortcut for subtracting - from a selection is holding Option or Alt - as you use the Selection Tool.
I'll start on the bottom here and just drag around - on this area of the snow that was selected - underneath the snowboard.
And for the adjustment - that I'm going to apply to this selection, I don't really need - the snowboard selected at all, so in addition to removing the area - of the snow in the background that was selected, I'm also going to just deselect - the entire front of the snowboard.
There we go.
We'll just loop around there - to subtract that.
No matter what Selection Tool you use, this is the way - to manually add to a selection or subtract from it.
You can use the icons in the Options bar - for a Selection Tool, or you can use the shortcuts of Shift - to add to a selection and Option or Alt - to subtract from a selection.
Now we can add an adjustment - to brighten the selected area and make the snowboarder - stand out a bit more.
To do this, - I'll go over to the Adjustments panel and I'll click on the first icon of a Sun to add a Brightness/Contrast - adjustment layer.
When you have a selection in an image - and you add an adjustment layer, the selection is turned into a layer mask so that only the selected area - will be affected by the adjustment.
In the Properties panel, I'll move the Brightness slider - to the right to 44, 45 looks pretty good and there, that looks a lot better.
If I click the Eye icon - for that adjustment layer to turn it off and then on again, you can see how lightning the snowboarder - improves the image.
Selections are a powerful way - to apply adjustments to certain parts of a photo.
Even if they're not perfect right away, you can easily modify them by adding to - or subtracting from the selected areas. -
