Photoshop Selections: The Lasso Tool

So far in our journey through Photoshop's various selection tools, we've looked at how the Rectangular Marquee Tool allows us to easily draw selections based on simple rectangular or square shapes, and how the Elliptical Marquee Tool extends our selection making abilities into the exciting world of ovals and circles. But what if we need to select something in a photo that's a little more complex, like someone's eyes, an item of clothing, or maybe a car or a bottle? Something that still has a clearly defined form to it but is beyond the capabilities of Photoshop's geometry-based Marquee Tools.

If you're a more advanced Photoshop user, you'll probably head straight for the Pen Tool, the tool of choice for making professional quality form-based selections. But if you have a good quality mouse (or even better, a pen tablet), decent drawing skills and a little patience, you may find that the Lasso Tool, another of Photoshop's basic selection tools, is all you need.

Photoshop actually gives us three variations of lasso to work with. The one we'll be looking at in this tutorial is the standard Lasso Tool, which you can access by clicking on its icon in the Tools panel. It's the tool that looks like the sort of lasso you'd find a cowboy swinging at a rodeo:

Selecting the standard Lasso Tool.

For a faster way to select the Lasso Tool, simply press the letter L on your keyboard. There are two other types of lasso tools as well - the Polygonal Lasso Tool and the Magnetic Lasso Tool, both of which are hiding behind the standard Lasso Tool in the Tools panel. We'll look at both of these tools in separate tutorials, but to access either of them, simply click and hold your mouse button down on the standard Lasso Tool until a small fly-out menu appears, then select either tool from the menu:

Each of the three types of lasso tool gives us a different way to draw selections.

All three lasso tools share the letter L as their keyboard shortcut for selecting them, so depending on how you have things set up in Photoshop's Preferences, you can cycle through the three tools either by pressing the letter L repeatedly or by pressing Shift+L. We covered how to change the option in the Preferences for switching between tools in the Elliptical Marquee Tool tutorial.

Drawing Freehand Selections

Of all the selection tools in Photoshop, the Lasso Tool is probably the easiest to use and understand because you simply drag a freehand selection around the object or area you want to select, in a similar way to how you would outline something on a piece of paper with a pen or pencil. With the Lasso Tool selected, your mouse cursor will appear as a small lasso icon, and you simply click at the spot in the document where you want to begin the selection, then continue holding your mouse button down and drag to draw a freeform selection outline:

Drawing a selection outline with the Lasso Tool is like drawing with a pen or pencil on paper.

To complete the selection, simply return to the spot where you began and release your mouse button. You don't necessarily have to return the same spot you started from, but if you don't, Photoshop will automatically close the selection for you by drawing a straight line from the point where you released your mouse button to the point where you began, so in most cases, you will want to finish where you started:

Photoshop will close a selection automatically with a straight line if you don't drag back to the beginning point.

To say that the Lasso Tool is not the most accurate of Photoshop's selection tools would be an understatement, but its usefulness is greatly improved with Photoshop's ability to add to and subtract from selections. I find that the best way to work with the Lasso Tool is to drag an initial selection around the object or area I'm selecting, ignoring any obvious mistakes I made, then going back around and fixing up the problem areas by adding to or subtracting from the selection as needed.

Here's a photo I currently have open on my screen of two people shaking hands. I want to select the handshake and place it into a different image:

The Lasso Tool is a good choice for selecting freeform objects like this.

To begin my selection, I'll first grab the Lasso Tool from the Tools panel as we saw earlier. Then I'll click somewhere along the top of the sleeve of the person on the left to begin my selection, although it really makes no difference where along the object you begin your selection with the Lasso Tool. Once I've clicked on a starting point, I'll continue holding my mouse button down as I drag to draw an outline around the area of the photo I need. I can already see that I've made some mistakes, but I'll ignore them for now and continue on:

Don't worry about any mistakes with your initial selection. You can fix them later.

If you need to scroll your image around inside the document window as you're drawing the selection, hold down your spacebar, which will temporarily switch you to Photoshop's Hand Tool, scroll the image as needed, then release your spacebar and continue drawing the selection.

To make sure I select all of the pixels I need along the edge of the photo, I'll press the letter F on my keyboard to switch to Full Screen Mode with Menu Bar and I'll drag my selection outline into the gray pasteboard area surrounding the image. Don't worry about selecting the pasteboard, since Photoshop only cares about the image itself, not the pasteboard area:

It's okay to drag the Lasso Tool into the pasteboard area when you need to select pixels along the edge of a photo.

If you want to switch back to the document window view mode, press the letter F a couple more times to cycle through Photoshop's screen modes. I'll continue dragging around the area I need to select until I'm back to my starting point, and to complete my initial selection with the Lasso Tool, I'll simply release my mouse button. An animated outline, commonly known as "marching ants", now appears around the selected area:

The initial selection is complete, but there's quite a few problem areas that need fixing.

Since the Lasso Tool is essentially a manual selection tool that relies heavily on your own drawing skills, as well as on the accuracy and performance of your mouse, you'll probably end up with an initial selection outline that falls well short of perfect, as mine did. Not to worry though, since we can easily go back and fix up the problem areas, which we'll do next!

Adding To The Initial Selection

To inspect the selection outline for any problem areas, it usually helps to be zoomed in on the image. To zoom in, press and holdCtrl+spacebar (Win) / Command+spacebar (Mac) to temporarily switch to Photoshop's Zoom Tool, then click inside the document window once or twice to zoom in (to zoom back out later, press and hold Alt+spacebar (Win) / Option-spacebar (Mac) and click inside the document window). Once you've zoomed in, hold down your spacebar by itself to temporarily switch to the Hand Tool, then click and drag the image along the selection outline to look for problems.

Here, I've come across an area where I missed the edge of the person's hand:

One of several problem areas with the initial selection.

No need to start all over again. I can easily fix this by simply adding to the existing selection. Make sure you still have the Lasso Tool selected, then to add to a selection, hold down your Shift key. You'll see a small plus sign (+) appear in the bottom right of the cursor icon, letting you know that you're now in Add to Selection mode. With the Shift key held down, click somewhere inside of the existing selection, then drag outside of it and along the edge of the area you want to add. When you're done adding the new area, drag back inside of the existing selection:

Hold down your Shift key and drag around the area you want to add to the existing selection.

Drag back to the spot where you initially clicked, then release your mouse button to finish. The area of the person's hand that I missed initially has now been added:

More of the image has been added to the initial selection.

There's no need to continue holding down your Shift key the whole time you're adding to a selection. Once you've started dragging your mouse, you can safely release the Shift key. You'll stay in Add to Selection mode until you release your mouse button.

Subtracting From The Initial Selection

I'll continue scrolling along my selection outline looking for problems, and here I've come across the exact opposite problem from what I had a moment ago. This time, I selected too much of the image around the person's finger:

Another sloppy selection area. This time, too much of the area was selected.

No worries though, since we can remove parts of a selection just as easily as we can add to them. To remove an unwanted area from a selection, hold down your Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key. This will place you in Subtract from Selection mode, and you'll see a small minus sign (-) appear in the bottom right corner of the cursor icon. With the Alt / Option key held down, simply click anywhere outside of the existing selection to set a starting point, then drag inside the selection and along the edge of the area you want to remove. In my case, I'm going to drag along the edge of the finger. When you're done, drag back outside of the existing selection:

Removing the problem area by subtracting it from the selection.

Drag back to the spot where you first clicked, then release your mouse button to finish. The unwanted area around the person's finger has now been removed:

Problem area? What problem area? I don't see any problem area.

Again, there's no need to hold your Alt / Option key down the entire time. You can safely release the key once you've started dragging. You'll remain in Subtract from Selection mode until you release your mouse button.

Once I've scrolled all around the selection outline fixing problems by adding or removing parts as needed, my final selection with the Lasso Tool is complete:

The final selection.

With the handshake now selected, I'll press Ctrl+C (Win) / Command+C (Mac) to quickly copy the selected area, then I'll open up a second image in Photoshop and press Ctrl+V (Win) / Command+V (Mac) to paste the handshake into the new photo, repositioning it as needed:

Thanks to our successful Lasso Tool selection, business is booming!

Removing A Selection

When you're done with a selection created with the Lasso Tool, you can remove it by going up to the Select menu at the top of the screen and choosing Deselect, or you can press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+D (Win) / Command+D (Mac). You can also simply click anywhere inside of the document with the Lasso Tool.

As we've seen, Photoshop's Lasso Tool is an incredibly easy tool to use, and while it may not qualify as a professional-level selection tool, the ability to go back and fix problems with the initial selection can really help to improve your results. Up next, we'll look at the second of the three lasso tools, the Polygonal Lasso Tool!

Photoshop Selections: The Elliptical Marquee Tool

Drawing Circular Selections

The Elliptical Marquee Tool also allows us to easily draw selections in the shape of a perfect circle. In fact, just as we saw with the Rectangular Marquee Tool when we constrained it to a perfect square, there's two ways to draw a circle with the Elliptical Marquee Tool. One way is by setting some options in the Options Bar at the top of the screen.

Here's a photo I have open of the moon. Let's say I want to select the moon so I can add it to a different photo. Since the shape of the moon is circular (at least as it appears to us earthlings in a 2D photo), the Elliptical Marquee Tool is an obvious choice for selecting it:

The Elliptical Marquee Tool is the tool of choice for selecting moons, planets and other round celestial bodies.

Whenever you have the Elliptical Marquee Tool selected, the Options Bar will display options specifically for this tool, and for the most part, the options are the same as what you'll find with the Rectangular Marquee Tool. One of the options is called Style, and by default, it's set to Normal, which allows us to draw any elliptical shape we want. To constrain the shape of the selection to a perfect circle, change the Style option to Fixed Ratio. By default, Photoshop will set the Width and Height values in the Options Bar to 1, which constrains the width-to-height aspect ratio of the selection to 1:1, creating a perfect circle:

The options for both the Rectangular and Elliptical Marquee Tools are nearly identical.

To draw a circular selection around the moon, I'll click and hold my mouse button down somewhere above the top left of the moon to set my starting point, then I'll drag down towards the bottom right until I have the moon selected. As I drag out the selection, it will be constrained to a perfect circle thanks to the options we set in the Options Bar. Unfortunately, I'll run into the same problem here with the selection outline moving further and further away from my starting point as I drag out the selection, so I'll need to hold down myspacebar a few times to reposition the selection as I draw it. When I'm done, I'll release my mouse button to complete the selection:

The spacebar is your friend when trying to select objects with the Elliptical Marquee Tool. Hold it down to reposition selections as you draw them.

The Keyboard Shortcut
While there's technically nothing wrong with changing the settings in the Options Bar to constrain the selection outline to a circle, it can quickly become frustrating because Photoshop does not automatically set the Style option back to Normal when you're done, which means you'll have to remember to always change it back yourself, otherwise you'll still be in Fixed Ratio mode the next time you try to draw an elliptical selection.

A better way to constrain the selection to a circle is to simply hold down your Shift key as you're drawing it. Just as adding the Shift key will constrain a rectangular selection to a square when using the Rectangular Marquee Tool, it will force the selection into a perfect circle with the Elliptical Marquee Tool.

Keep in mind, though, that the order in which you do things is important. Click and begin dragging out your selection, then hold down the Shift key to constrain the selection to a circle and continue dragging. When you're done, release your mouse button to complete the selection, then release the Shift key. If you don't follow the correct order, you could get unexpected results.

Drawing Selections From The Center

You can also draw elliptical selections from the center outward, which is often an easier way to work with the Elliptical Marquee Tool. Simply click in the center of the object or area you need to select, then hold down your Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key and continue dragging. As soon as you press and hold the Alt / Option key, the spot you initially clicked on will become the center point of the selection, and as you continue dragging, the selection will extend out in all directions from that point.

Again, the order in which you do things in important. Click and drag to begin the selection, then press and hold Alt / Option to constrain the selection to a circle and continue dragging. When you're done, release your mouse button to complete the selection, then release the Alt / Option key.

You can drag out a circular selection from its center as well. Just add the Shift key to the keyboard shortcut. Click and drag to begin the selection, then press and hold Shift+Alt (Win) / Shift+Option (Mac) to constrain the selection to a circle and force the selection out from its center. Continue dragging out the selection, and when you're done, release your mouse button to complete it, then release your Shift and Alt / Option keys:

Use Shift+Alt (Win) / Shift+Option (Mac) to draw a circular selection from its center with the Elliptical Marquee Tool.

Now that I have the moon selected, I'll open up a second photo, this time of a city at night, and with both images open in separate document windows, I'll select Photoshop's Move Tool from the Tools panel:

Selecting the Move Tool.

With the Move Tool selected, I'll hold down my Alt (Win ) / Option (Mac) key, then I'll click inside the selection and drag the moon into the second image. Holding down the Alt / Option key here tells Photoshop to create a copy of the moon rather than cutting it out of the photo:

With the moon selected, I can use the Move Tool to drag it into another photo.

Since the moon is looking a little too big for the second image, I'll press Ctrl+T (Win) / Command+T (Mac) to bring up Photoshop'sFree Transform command to resize it, holding the Shift key down as I drag the corner handles inward. This constrain the moon's width-to-height ratio so I don't accidentally distort the shape of it as I'm resizing it:

Dragging the Free Transform handles to resize the moon.

You can also use the Free Transform command to move objects around inside the document window simply by clicking inside of the Free Transform bounding box and dragging the object to a new location. I think I'll move the moon over to the top right side of the tower. To exit out of the Free Transform command, I'll press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) on my keyboard:

Adding the moon to the second image was easy once it was selected with the Elliptical Marquee Tool.

Removing A Selection

When you're done with a selection that you've created with the Elliptical Marquee Tool and you no longer you need it, there's three ways to remove it. You can go up to the Select menu at the top of the screen and choose Deselect:

The Deselect command under the Select menu can be used to remove selections.

You can also use the faster keyboard shortcut Ctrl+D (Win) / Command+D (Mac). Or, with the Elliptical Marquee Tool still selected, simply click anywhere inside the document window to remove the selection.

We'll continue our journey through Photoshop's many selection tools with one that allows us to draw freehand selections around objects in a photo as if we were outlining them on paper with a pen or pencil - the Lasso Tool!In a previous tutorial, we learned how Photoshop's Rectangular Marquee Tool allows us to quickly and easily select objects or areas in a photo based on simple rectangular or square shapes. The Elliptical Marquee Tool, which is what we'll be looking at here, is another of Photoshop's basic selection tools. It's nearly identical to the Rectangular Marquee Tool and works much the same way. In fact, the only real difference is that the Elliptical Marquee Tool allows us to draw oval or circular selections! If you already know how to use the Rectangular Marquee Tool, think of the Elliptical Marquee Tool as being the same thing, just with extremely rounded corners.

By default, the Elliptical Marquee Tool is hiding behind the Rectangular Marquee Tool in the Tools panel. To access it, simply click on the Rectangular Marquee Tool, then hold your mouse button down for a second or two until a fly-out menu appears showing you the other tools that are nested behind it. Click on the Elliptical Marquee Tool in the fly-out menu to select it:

Many of Photoshop's tools are located behind other tools in the Tools panel.

Once you've chosen the Elliptical Marquee Tool, it will appear in place of the Rectangular Marquee Tool in the Tools panel. To get back to the Rectangular Marquee Tool, you'll need to click and hold on the Elliptical Marquee Tool, then select the Rectangular Marquee Tool from the fly-out menu:

Whichever Marquee Tool you selected previously appears in the Tools panel.

You can easily switch between the Rectangular and Elliptical Marquee Tools from your keyboard, although exactly how you do it will depend on how you have things set up in Photoshop's Preferences. Every tool in the Tools panel can be accessed by pressing a certain letter on your keyboard. Both the Rectangular and Elliptical Marquee Tools can be selected by pressing the letter M, and to switch between them, you either press M again by itself or you'll need to press Shift+M. Again, this depends on how you have it set up in the Preferences.

On a PC, you'll find the Preferences option under the Edit menu at the top of the screen. On a Mac, you'll find it under thePhotoshop menu. In the General section, look for the option called Use Shift Key for Tool Switch. With this option checked, you'll need to add the Shift key to switch between the two Marquee tools (as well as other tools in the Tools panel that share the same keyboard shortcut). Uncheck the option if you'd rather just use the M key by itself to switch between them. It's completely up to you:

The "Use Shift Key for Tool Switch" option in Photoshop's Preferences allows you to control how you switch between nested tools in the Tools panel.

Drawing Oval Selections

To draw an oval selection with the Elliptical Marquee Tool, simply click at the point where you want to begin the selection, then hold your mouse button down and drag in the direction you need until you have the object or area surrounded by the selection outline. Release your mouse button to complete the selection. Here's a wedding photo that I have open in Photoshop:

A smiling bride and groom, happy to be helping us learn about selections.

I want to add a classic white vignette effect to this photo, and the Elliptical Marquee Tool will make it easy. First, I'll add a new blank layer so I can create my effect without damaging the original image. I'll do that by clicking on the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel:

Add a new blank layer by clicking on the New Layer icon in the Layers panel.

This adds a new blank layer named "Layer 1" above the Background layer:

Photoshop always gives new layers generic names like "Layer 1".

I'm going to fill this new layer with white using Photoshop's Fill command. To select it, I'll go up to the Edit menu at the top of the screen and choose Fill:

The Fill command is found under the Edit menu.

This brings up the Fill dialog box. I'll select White in the Contents section in the top half of the dialog box, then I'll click OK to exit out of the dialog box and fill "Layer 1" with white:

The Fill command allows us to fill layers or selections with color.

At this point, my entire document window is filled with white, blocking the photo of the wedding couple from view. To temporarily hide "Layer 1" so I can see the original photo again, I'll click on the Layer Visibility icon (also known as the "eyeball") to the left of "Layer 1" in the Layers panel:

You can temporarily turn layers on or off by clicking the Layer Visibility icon.

Now that I can see the original image, I'll begin my vignetting effect by drawing an oval selection around the wedding couple. I'll select the Elliptical Marquee Tool from the Tools panel as we saw earlier and I'll click somewhere in the top left corner of the photo to mark the spot where I want to begin my selection. Then, while still holding down my mouse button, I'll drag down towards the bottom right corner of the photo. As I drag, an oval selection outline appears around the couple in the center of the image:

Click and hoTooltip trigger goes here.ld on the spot where you want to begin the oval selection, then drag in the direction you need to draw the selection outline.

Repositioning Selections As You're Drawing Them

If you're following along with your own photo, you probably just noticed one of the big differences between using the Rectangular and Elliptical Marquee Tools. With the Rectangular Marquee Tool, the corner of the selection always remains at the exact spot you clicked on to begin the selection, no matter how large of a selection you drag out. With the Elliptical Marquee Tool, things get a bit trickier. Since elliptical shapes are rounded without any corners, the selection outline moves further and further away from the spot you initially clicked on as you drag out the selection. This can make it next to impossible to begin the selection at exactly the right spot you needed.

Fortunately, the same trick for repositioning selections as you're drawing them with the Rectangular Marquee Tool works with the Elliptical Marquee Tool. Simply hold down your spacebar as you're drawing the oval selection and drag with your mouse to move it back into position, then release your spacebar and continue dragging it out. You'll most likely find that you need to move the selection several times as you're drawing it, so just hold down your spacebar each time, drag the selection outline back into place, then release the spacebar and continue dragging out the selection.

When you're happy with the size, shape and location of your oval selection, release your mouse button to complete it. We can now see an elliptical selection outline surrounding the couple in the photo:

An oval selection outline appears around the wedding couple.

Feathering A Selection

In a moment, I'm going to use the oval selection I created with the Elliptical Marquee Tool to knock out the center of the solid white layer, creating my vignette effect. The only problem is that by default, selection edges are hard, and what I really need to create my vignette effect is a soft, smooth transition between the selected and unselected areas of the photo. We can soften selection edges in Photoshop by "feathering" them, and we do that by going up to the Select menu at the top of the screen, choosing Modify, and then choosing Feather:

You'll find various ways to alter selections under the Select menu.

This brings up Photoshop's Feather Selection dialog box. I'm going to set my Feather Radius value to around 30 pixels, which should be large enough to give me a smooth transition area between the white vignette edges and the couple in the center of the photo. The exact value you use for your image will depend on the size of your photo and will probably require some trial and error before you get it exactly right:

Feathering a selection softens the selection edges.

I'll click OK to exit out of the dialog box. Photoshop feathers the selection edges for me, although we won't actually see the effect of the feathering until we do something with the selection, as we're about to do. I'm going to click back on the Layer Visibility icon on "Layer 1" to bring back the solid white fill:

When a layer is currently hidden, the eyeball inside the Layer Visibility icon is also hidden.

This fills the document window with white once again, making it easy to see the selection outline we created:

Turning "Layer 1" back on fills the document window once again with solid white.

Finally, to complete the vignette effect, I'll simply press Delete (Win) / Backspace (Mac) on my keyboard to delete the area of white inside the selection outline. To remove the selection outline since I no longer need it, I'll click anywhere inside the document window with the Elliptical Marquee Tool. Notice the soft transition between the white edges and the photo in the center thanks to the feathering we applied:

The Elliptical Marquee Tool made it easy to create this classic photo effect.

The Elliptical Marquee Tool made drawing the oval selection and creating the vignette effect easy. But what if we need to draw a circular selection? We'll look at that next!

Photoshop Selections: The Rectangular Marquee Tool

In a previous tutorial, we looked at reasons why we need to make selections at all in Photoshop, where we learned that Photoshop sees the world very differently from how you and I see it. Where we see independent objects, Photoshop sees only pixels of different colors, so we use Photoshop's various selection tools to select objects or areas in a photo that Photoshop would never be able to identify on its own.

I mentioned in that same tutorial that Photoshop gives us lots of different tools for selecting things in an image, some basic and some more advanced (although it's funny how even so-called "advanced" tools can seem quite basic once you're comfortable with them). In this tutorial, we'll look at one of the most common and easiest selection tools to use, the Rectangular Marquee Tool, one of Photoshop's basic selection tools that, along with the Elliptical Marquee Tool and the Polygonal Lasso Tool, is designed for making selections based on simple geometric shapes. As the name implies, the Rectangular Marquee Tool is perfect for times when you need to draw a selection in the shape of a rectangle or a square.

You'll find the Rectangular Marquee Tool sitting at the very top of the Tools panel in Photoshop. It's the tool with the icon that looks like the outline of a square. Click on it to select it:

The Rectangular Marquee Tool is located at the top of the Tools panel.

If you're using Photoshop CS4 as I am here, or Photoshop CS3, and you have your Tools panel set to a single column layout, the Rectangular Marquee Tool will be the second icon from the top:

The Tools panel in Photoshop CS3 and higher can be displayed in either a single or double column layout.

Drawing Rectangular Selections

Using the Rectangular Marquee Tool in its most basic form is easy. You simply click with your mouse at the point where you want to begin the selection, which will usually be in the top left corner of the object or area you need to select, then continue holding your mouse button down as you drag towards the bottom right corner of the object or area. When you release your mouse button, the selection is complete!

Here's a photo of some wooden blocks:

Colorful wooden blocks.

See that large red block in the top row? Let's say I wanted to change its color, a very simple thing to do. Now, if this was Star Trek, I could simply say "Computer, select red block, top row", followed by "Change color to purple", or whatever color we wanted. Unfortunately, reality hasn't quite caught up to science fiction just yet, but that doesn't mean life in this day and age is unbearably difficult. Far from it! Photoshop may not be able to identify the wooden block, since all it sees are pixels, but not only can you and I see it, we can see that it's very clearly in the shape of a rectangle, which means that the task of selecting it is perfectly suited for the Rectangular Marquee Tool.

First, I'll select the Rectangular Marquee Tool from the Tools panel as we saw a moment ago. You can also select tools using their keyboard shortcuts. Pressing the letter M on your keyboard will instantly select the Rectangular Marquee Tool. Then, to begin the selection, I'll click in the top left corner of the block. While still holding down my mouse button, I'll drag towards the bottom right corner of the block:

Click in the top left corner to begin a selection, then drag down to the bottom right corner. Release your mouse button to complete it.

If you find that you didn't begin your selection in exactly the right spot, there's no need to start over. Just hold down your spacebar, then drag your mouse to move the selection where you need it. When you're done, release your spacebar and continue dragging out the selection.

To complete the selection, all I need to do is release my mouse button. The wooden block is now selected (or at least, the pixels that make up what we see as the block are selected), and a selection outline appears around the block in the document window. Any edits I make at this point will affect that specific block and no others:

Selection outlines appear as a series of moving dashed lines, also known as "marching ants".

To change the color of the block, we'll use Photoshop's Hue/Saturation image adjustment. To select it, I'll go up to the Image menu at the top of the screen where I'll choose Adjustments and then Hue/Saturation:

The Hue/Saturation image adjustment is great for changing the color of objects in an image.

This brings up the Hue/Saturation dialog box. I think I'll change the block's color to orange. I know I said purple earlier, but now that I've had a few more minutes to think about it, a nice bright orange would probably be a better choice. Changing the color is as easy as dragging the Hue slider left or right until you find the color you want. I'm going to drag mine towards the right to a value of 28 to select orange. Then, to bump up the color saturation a bit, I'll drag the Saturation slider towards the right to a value of around +25:

Change an object's color by dragging the Hue slider. Increase or decrease color saturation with the Saturation slider.

When I'm happy with the new color, I'll click OK to exit out of the dialog box. I don't need my selection anymore, so to remove it, I'll go up to the Select menu at the top of the screen and choose Deselect:

Remove selections by choosing Deselect from under the Select menu.

A faster way to remove a selection is with the keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+D (Win) / Command+D (Mac), but either way will work. With the selection outline now gone, we can see that only the area that was inside the rectangular selection outline was affected by the Hue/Saturation adjustment. The formerly red block is now an orange block, while the rest of the photo remains unchanged:

Only the area inside the rectangular selection was affected by the Hue/Saturation adjustment.

Selecting the wooden block with the Rectangular Marquee Tool was easy, but what if the object we need to select is perfectly square? We'll look at that next!

Drawing Square Selections

So far, we've seen how easy it is to select a rectangular-shaped object or area in a photo with the Rectangular Marquee Tool, but what if you need to select something that's perfectly square? Is there a way to force the selection outline into a square? Not only is there a way to do it, there's actually two ways to do it, although one of them is much faster than the other.

Here's a photo I have open in Photoshop of some rather grungy looking tiles:

Dirty, grungy looking tiles.

Let's say I want to select the tile in the center so I can use it as an interesting background or texture for an effect. Since the tile is obviously square, we'll want to constrain our selection to a square. First, we'll look at the long way to go about it.

Any time the Rectangular Marquee Tool is selected, the Options Bar at the top of the screen will display options specifically for this tool. One of the options is called Style, and by default, it's set to Normal, which means we're free to drag out any size selection we need with any dimensions. To force the selection into a square, first change the Style option to Fixed Ratio, then enter a value of 1for both the Width and Height options (1 is the default value for the Width and Height so you may not need to change it):

Change the Style option to Fixed Ratio, then set both the Width and Height to 1.

This forces the selection into a width to height aspect ratio of 1:1, which means the width and height of our selection will always be equal to each other, which means we can now easily draw out a perfect square. I'll click with my mouse in the top left corner of the tile to begin my selection, just as I did previously, and with my mouse button still down, I'll drag towards the bottom right corner of the tile. This time, thanks to the options I set in the Options Bar, my selection outline is constrained to a square:

No matter how large of a selection I draw, it remains a perfect square.

Once again, there's no need to start over if you didn't begin your selection in the right spot. Just hold down your spacebar, drag the selection to its new location, then release the spacebar and continue dragging out the rest of the selection.

To complete the selection, I'll release my mouse button, and we can see in the document window that the square tile in the center is now selected, ready for whatever I decide to do with it:

The center tile is now selected.

The only problem with using this method to force the selection into a square is that the options in the Options Bar are "sticky", meaning they don't automatically switch back to their default settings the next time you go to use the tool. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've tried to drag out a rectangular selection only to have the selection constrained to a square or some other aspect ratio because I forgot to change the Style option back to Normal. So, before we go any further, let's change it back to Normalright now:

Make sure to set the Style option back to Normal since Photoshop won't do it for you.

The Keyboard Shortcut
A much better way to constrain a selection to a square with the Rectangular Marquee Tool is with a simple keyboard shortcut. Click on the starting point and begin dragging out a rectangular selection as you normally would, then hold down your Shift key as you continue to drag. As soon as you press the Shift key, you'll see the selection outline jump to a perfect square. Keep holding the Shift key down until you're finished drawing the selection. Release your mouse button to complete the selection, then release the Shift key.

The order you do things here is important. If you release your Shift key before releasing your mouse button to complete the selection, your selection outline will jump back into a rectangular shape and you'll have to press and hold the Shift key again to switch back to the square. Also, if you hold the Shift key down before clicking to begin your selection, you'll enter the Add to Selection mode, which isn't something we need to get into here but it could give you unexpected results if you already have one selection active and try to start a new one. So remember, to constrain the selection to a square with the keyboard shortcut, first click to set a starting point and begin dragging, then hold down the Shift key. Release your mouse button to complete the selection, then release the Shift key.

Next, we'll learn how to drag a rectangular or square selection out from its center!

Drawing Selections From The Center

Up to this point, we've been starting all of our rectangular or square selections from the top left corner of whatever it was that we were selecting, and in most cases that works just fine. But there's no rule that says you must always start in the top left corner. In fact, Photoshop gives us a simple keyboard shortcut that allows us to drag selections out from their center rather than from a corner.

Click on your starting point in the center of the area you need to select with the Rectangular Marquee Tool and begin dragging out your selection, then hold down your Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key and continue dragging. As soon as you add the Alt / Option key, your selection outline will begin extending out in all directions from the point you initially clicked on. Continue dragging the selection out from its center, release your mouse button to complete the selection, then release your Alt / Option key:

Holding down Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) allows us to drag selections out from the center.

Once again, the order you do things here is important. If you release your Alt / Option key before releasing your mouse button to complete the selection, the selection outline will jump back to its default behavior of extending out from the corner. You'll need to press and hold the Alt / Option key again to switch it back to the center. Also, if you press and hold Alt / Option before clicking to set a start point, you'll enter the Subtract from Selection mode which we won't get into here but can cause unexpected results if you already have one selection active and try to start a new one. The correct order for drawing rectangular selections from the center is to click to set a starting point and begin dragging, then hold down Alt / Option and continue dragging. Release your mouse button to complete the selection, then release your Alt / Option key.

You can drag out a square selection from its center as well. Simply add the Shift key to the keyboard shortcut. Click in the center of the square object or area you need to select and begin dragging out the selection, then hold down Shift+Alt (Win) / Shift+Option(Mac) which will snap the selection outline into a perfect square and force the selection to extend out in all directions from the point you clicked on. When you're done, release your mouse button, then release the Shift and Alt / Option keys.

Quickly Remove A Selection

When you're done with a selection and no longer need it, you can deselect it by going up to the Select menu at the top of the screen and choosing Deselect as we saw earlier, or you can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+D (Win) / Command+D (Mac). Or, for an even faster way to deselect a rectangular or square selection, simply click anywhere inside the document window while you still have the Rectangular Marquee Tool active.

Up next, we'll look at the second of Photoshop's two main Marquee selection tools, the Elliptical Marquee Tool!