Quick masks are a method of selecting areas in an image by using the brush or pen tools. This allows you to make more accurate selections as you are able to paint the areas you wish to select.

The process of using the quick masks involves:

• Resetting the colour palette.
• Entering quick mask mode.
• Painting the mask.
• Exiting the quick mask mode.

Resetting the colour palette

To begin using quick masks you must first reset the colour palette by pressing the “D” key. This will allow you to see the quick masks more clearly. Although, if you have two different colours in your palette you will notice the foreground colour turn gray when to enter quick mask mode.


Entering quick mask mode

There are two ways of entering the quick mask mode. You can either select the “Edit it quick mask mode” icon on the toolbox like below:


Or you can select the “Q” key on the keyboard. There are two different ways you can tell if you are in quick mask mode. Firstly, the title on the image will have “Quick Mask”; and the history panel on the right will have the message “Enter Quick mask”.


Painting the mask

When you paint in quick mask mode, you will notice a transparent red colour. The colour red indicates the areas which have masked out. For example below, I want to select the sky background, so have painted the area.


You can of course increase the size of your brush and zoom into your image when you are in quick mask mode.

If you make a mistake you can flip the colour palette by pressing the “X” key and paint to unmask the areas, but remember to flip the palette back. Or you can alternatively use the eraser tool to remove your mistake.


Exiting the quick mask mode

There are two ways of exiting the quick mask mode. You can select the icon opposite the “Edit it quick mask mod” in the toolbox. Or you select the “Q” key again to exit the quick masks. The example will look something like below:


You should notice the opposite area selected. You can reverse this choosing Select > Inverse and your image should look like below. Ideally you should paint the opposite of what you want to select in quick mask mode.



Summary

This is a quick summary of how to use quick mask mode:

• Resetting the colour palette – Select the “D” key.
• Entering quick mask mode – Select the “Q” key on the keyboard or the icon on the toolbox.
• Painting the mask – Paint the mask area.
• Exiting the quick mask mode – Select the “Q” key on the keyboard or the icon on the toolbox.

The standard lasso and the polygonal lasso have options like the Marquee tools which are:

• New selection – This is the default, a new selection made every time you use the standard or polygonal lasso. The old selection will get removed when a new selection is made.
• Add to selection – This adds more selections from the current selected areas when you use this option.
• Subtraction from selection – This subtracts selection from the current selected areas.
• Intersect from selection – This option keeps the section from the intersected area of two selections.

The magnetic lasso has a different set of options which are:

• Width – The pixel width of the magnetic lasso. The maximum width value is 256px.
• Edge contrast – The sensitivity of the edges in the images, the value ranges from 1 – 100 %.
• Frequency – The rate the lasso detects and sets to the edges of the image. The greater the value the more frequent the anchor points.
• Stylus Pressure – This is for if you are using a graphics tablet, the more pressure you apply the smaller the edge width.

There are 3 main kinds of Lasso tools in Photoshop which are :

• The standard lasso
• Polygonal lasso
• Magnetic lasso

The standard lasso

The standard lasso is a tool used for drawing freeform selections. You use this tool like a pen, you click and hold down the mouse and draw your selection on the image. To draw straight lines you can hold down the Alt key. The standard lasso is useful for making quick selections on an image, although the selected areas will not be accurate. If you make a mistake when using the lasso you can simply double-click and start your selection again.




Polygonal lasso

The polygonal lasso is a tool used for drawing straight edged selection. This tool is similar to the standard lasso, but draws straight selections instead of free forms selections. To use this tool, you click the location where you want your first point for the selection, and keep clicking until you end your selection. If you want to erase the selection you can hit the Delete key. Also, if you want to draw freehand you can hold down the Alt key.




Magnetic lasso

The magnetic lasso is a tool for snapping to the edges of an area of an image. To use this tool, you click the initial starting point and use the mouse to follow the edges of the object where you want to select. You can either hold the down mouse button or release the button when using this tool. When you moving the mouse it will automatically snap the edge of the object. If the lasso does not snap to the edges you can click once on the mouse, which manually adds an anchor point to the image.



To create a straight edge like the in the polygonal lasso tool you can hold down the Alt key. If you want to erase a point you can hit the delete key which will remove the previous point.

Checkout The lasso tools part 2

When you use the marquee tools there are four different options you can choose from which can change the effect of the selection. The four options are listed below:

• New selection
• Add to selection
• Subtract from selection
• Intersect with selection

(The image shows the selection options in the order above.)


New selection

Most people only know about the new selection because it is the default selection. The new selection is where a new marquee is made every time you click and drag on your image. The old marquee disappears when you make a new selection.



Add to selection

The add selection option adds to the current selection instead of the removing the previous selection like in the new selection option. As you can see in the example below I have used the rectangular marquee tool to add more selected areas.



Subtract from selection

The subtract selection option removes areas of the selection. In the example below I have used the elliptical marquee tool which removed a small section from the selected area.




Intersect with selection

The intersect selection option creates a new selection from the intersected area of the selection. In the example below I have used the rectangular marquee tool to create two rectangles. Only the intersected area highlighted below will remain.

There are 4 marquee tools to choose from which are:

• Rectangular marquee tool
• Circular marquee tool
• Single row marquee tool
• Single column marquee tool

To select the different tools above you can either: click and hold down the marquee tool icon and wait for a drop down menu to appear. Or you can hold the Alt key and switch between the different marquee tools.



Below are explanations each of the marquee tools in detail:

1. Rectangular marquee tool

This tool is used to make rectangular selections in an image. You simply just click and drag a rectangle shape to the area of the image you wish.



2. Circular marquee tool

This tool is similar to the rectangular tool it makes circular selections in am image. You again click and drag a circular shape to the area of the image you want. You can create a perfect circle by holding down the Shift key while dragging a circular shape.



3. Single row marquee tool

This tool selects a single row of pixels in an image. When you use this tool you will notice only a single line selected like the example below. However, you can also add more rows of pixels by holding down the Shift key or by using the add selection mode which is discussed in Marquee tools part 2.



4. Single column marquee tool

This tool is exactly the same as the row marquee tool, but creates column rows of pixels instead. The same principles of applying more columns are the same as above.

There are a variety of different selection tools in Photoshop. The tools include:

• The marquee tools
• The lasso tools
• The magic wand
• Quick mask tool

The selection tools basically make selections in the images which will allow you to modify the selected areas. Each tool above will be explained separately and will include diagrams to increase the understanding of the various tools.

The selection tools are a fundamental part of Photoshop, so it essential that you have an understanding of how to use the various tools. You will all most definitely use one of the selection tools every time you use Photoshop. I will be providing detailed information on each selection tool.

Below are graphical previews of the some selection tools: