Project #3: Veggies / Selections

Class Project 3 - Vegetables: Selections

1. Open the “P3_Vegetables.jpg” file in Adobe Photoshop.
2. Select the Magic Wand tool (hidden under the Quick Selection tool).
3. In the options bar, set the tolerance for the tool to 100 pixels.
4. Using the Magic Wand tool, click the red part of the tomato.  Most of it will be selected.
5. To select the remaining part of the tomato, hold the Shift key down on the keyboard so that a plus (+) sign appears with the tool cursor.  Then click the unselected areas of the tomato (including the green stem) and the pixels will be added to your selection. 
6. Continue Shift clicking to add (or Option click to subtract) to the selection until the entire tomato is selected.  The Option and Shift keys are keyboard shortcuts that perform the same action as choosing the Magic Wand icon with the + or – in the options bar.
7. Also remember that if you make a mistake Command Z is the keyboard shortcut to Edit > Undo your last action.  Or, you can always step back multiple states using the History Palette and clicking on a previous History State.
8. Once entirely selected, choose the Move tool from the toolbox (or press the V key on the keyboard as a tool shortcut).
9. Drag the tomato to the lower left of the cutting board as in the sample file “P3_VegetableFinalSample.jpg”.
10. Deselect the tomato by choosing Select > Deselect or the keyboard shortcut of Command D.
11. Go to Select > Reselect to reselect the tomato again.
12. Choose the move tool again and try moving the tomato over a little.  Notice that a whole appears in your image that is the same color as your background color!  That is because the tomato is on the same layer as the green cutting board so the moving leaves a whole in the image!
13. Use your History Palette to choose the History State just after we made our final selection, but before we ever moved the tomato.
14. Now choose Edit > Copy and Edit > Paste (or use the keyboard shortcuts) to place the tomato on its own individual layer so we can continuously edit it without affecting our background image.
15. Rename your new layer “Tomato” by clicking on the text of the new layer in the Layers Palette.  Again, choose the Move tool with the new layer selected and move the tomato to the bottom left of the cutting board.
16. Select the Background image layer in the layers palette.
17. Choose the Rectangular Marquee tool with 0 Feathering in the Options Bar.
18. Drag a square around the lettuce.
19. Choose the Magic Wand tool, and with a tolerance of 32 Option click the white area inside the selection box.  This is a much easier method of selecting by knowing how the Magic Wand can save you time by utilizing easier color patches to make your selection!
20. Copy, Paste, Rename the layer and Move the lettuce to the upper left per the sample image.
21. Select the Background layer and select the Zoom tool in the toolbox.
22. With the Zoom tool, drag a square around the olives to zoom in and fill the image window with them.
23. Select the Elliptical Marquee tool and drag an oval selection just inside the olives oval.  Use the space bar while holding down the mouse button to drag your selection.  This is a shortcut that allows you to move your selection while drawing it out for a quicker selection with more accuracy.
24. Once selected, go to View > Fit on screen (or use the keyboard shortcut!) to zoom out.
25. Copy, Paste, Rename the layer, and Move it to its proper place (Try ⌘C and ⌘V shortcuts).
26. Select the Background layer and draw another zoom square around the pink logo.
27. Using the Elliptical Marquee tool make a circular selection just inside of the pink logo edge.  Utilize the keyboard shortcuts of Option to center drag the circle and Shift to constrain the ellipse to a perfect circle while dragging the selection.  (And use the space bar as well to move the selection while dragging it out).
28. Fit to Screen, Copy, Paste, Rename the layer, and Move it to its proper place. (Try ⌘J instead).
29. Go to Layer > Duplicate layer to copy a second logo onto its own layer.
30. Go to Edit > Transform > Scale.  Shift click the corner toggle points to constrain the proportions and make the copy a bit bigger than the original.
31. Choose the Move tool and hold the Shift key to constrain your movements in 45˚ increments.  Move the second logo copy down and to the right.
32. Copy the second logo layer and again choose Edit > Transform > Scale, but this time plug 125% in to the options bar to specify an enlargement.  Again move the layer down and to the right.
33. Command click on the layer titles of all three layers with the logo to select all three layers.  Go to Layer > Group Layers to group them into one layer folder in the layers palette for easier editing as a group.  Rename the Group layer to “Logos”.  (Also notice in the Layers menu that you can also Link all selected layers to easily move or transform them together.  Or you can choose Merge layers if you would like to flatten the selected layers into one layer for editing.)
34. Zoom into the carrot and choose the Freehand Lasso tool.
35. Try to freehand draw a selection around the edges of the carrot – not too easy to accurately stay on the edges, is it!?  Select the Polygonal Lasso Tool (hidden under the Lasso Tool) which lets you click to place points and create line segments for your selection. Click once on the edge of the carrot.  Then click a second time further down the edge of the carrot to extend a straight line selection.  Still not the best way to select the carrot thought since it doesn’t really have straight edges! Don’t forget you can add/subtract from your selection using the options bar or the keyboard shortcut keys of Shift and Option.
36. Choose the Magnetic Lasso tool, which is again hidden in the same location as the Lasso and Polygonal Lasso tools in the toolbox.
37. Click once on the edge of the carrot and release the mouse.  Continue by simply pushing the mouse and drawing around the edges of the pepper (do not click! just push the mouse).  The Magnetic Lasso automatically snaps the selection to the edges of contrast for you!  Click once on your starting spot, or double-click, to close the Magnetic Lasso line and turn it into a selection. 
38. If there is an area of the carrot that is not selected (like the small stem), you can always choose the Lasso tool and add/subtract from the selection using the Shift and Option keys.
39. Copy, Paste, Rename the layer, and Move it to its proper place (but notice you have to rotate it!).
40. Choose Edit > Transform.  This allows you to perform multiple transformations including scale and rotate among others.  Rotate the carrot by clicking and dragging outside of the bounding box much like the Crop tool. Move the rotated carrot into better position by clicking and dragging inside the bounding box.  Commit the transformation by clicking the checkmark in the Options Bar.
41. Zoom into just the pepper and choose the BG layer and the Magnetic Lasso tool. 
42. Choose the Quick selection tool (under the Magic Wand) with a brush size that fits into the pepper.  Stroke a small line within the yellow part of the pepper and voila…your pepper is selected automatically.  Paint another stroke within the green stem and it is added to the selection.  Very quick, huh!?
43. Copy, Paste, Rename the layer, and Move it to its proper place and you are done!
44. Select the Crop tool and crop down to just the board using options bar settings of 5”x5” @ 300dpi.
45. Go to File > Save As and save as a Photoshop Document file format to your flash drive and the proper folder on the server with a title of “P3_YourName.psd”.

Congrats - You’re done!  Hope you learned some fun selection tools along the way.

Keep in mind selection tools aren’t just for copying, pasting, and moving image layer parts, but you can also make a selection and then create a new Adjustment Layer to effect color and tone of just that selected image area.  This will automatically create a Layer Mask which masks out, or hides, the adjustments from the unselected areas.

Sample of P3 Final Image