Making a selection means isolating an area of the image so that your edits affect only that area. It’s the foundation of all precise retouching.

The main tools

  • Rectangular / Elliptical Marquee — for simple geometric shapes.
  • Lasso — to draw an area freehand.
  • Magic Wand — selects pixels of a similar colour to the one you click.
  • Object Selection — automatically detects a subject.

Refining the selection

Hold Shift to add to the selection and Alt/Option to subtract from it. The active area is outlined by “marching ants” (an animated dashed line).

Key point: good retouching starts with a good selection. Take the time to get it right before you edit anything.

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