When the Quick Selection tool  Keyboard (W) fails because the colors you are selecting are too similar to the background… You can to use a selection tool you can control.  Pressing the keyboard letter L selects the active Lasso tool.  The default is the plain Lasso Tool. For this case select the Magnetic Lasso Tool.

If you haven’t used the lasso tools at all, you might find it a bit frustrating… Or you might find using them fun!

This is from Adobe’s on-line manual on how to use the Magnetic Lasso Tool

On-line Help Document for Using the Magnetic Lasso Tool;

However, I suggest instead you do the following… If you are using CS5

PS Elements selection wizard uses a different selecting method (Paint inside the lines what you want to keep and paint outside the lines with another color for what you want to be transparent —-More about this later)

To use the Quick Selection Tool, press the Keyboard Letter (W) and make sure you’ve selected the Quick Selection Tool and not the Magic Wand.

Go to the Quick Selection Tool’s Option Bar

Choose a small hard edged brush.

Draw inside your dog to select him.  If the selection strays press and HOLD the alt key (PC), Option Key (Mac)

Holding down the option key changes the selection from ADD (+) to SUBTRACT (-)

Subtract the areas you don’t want by painting on them with the alt/option key held down…

You selection should look something like this…

ZOOM in with the zoom tool, and do the best you can when selecting the Whiskers… (I didn’t do a very good job on them at all)

At this point all you need to do is get close, as close as you can, with your selection… we are going to REFINE the selection next…

To Refine the Selection you can choose Refine Edge in the Quick Selection Tool’s Option Bar.Or, You Can invoke the same Dialogue Box with the Menu: Select > Refine Edge…

Or use the Key Board Shortcut Alt Control R (PC) Option Command R (Mac)

You’ll get this window…

If you Press the F key, you’ll see how you selection looks using different backgrounds and methods, keep pressing the F key until you see a checkered background. (The checkers mean the background is transparent.)

Or, just Press the L key to get the “On Layers” View

To see the different ways you can view your selection in the View Mode Box, select the drop down menu, (the downward pointing Arrow… )

The Next Step

In the Edge Detection Area

Check Smart Radius and set the value to 20 pixels (px)

In the Adjust Edge box

Set

Smooth to 3
Feather to  1.3
Contrast to 25%
Shift Edge to 0

The smoothing and feathering will keep the edges soft

Now select the Refine Radius Tool (press the E key)

You can shift between the Refine Radius Tool and the Erase Refinement tool as you paint over the edges of your selection…

Photoshop will recalculate the selection, each time you make a paint stroke… so one stroke at a time, and wait to see your results (your computer is calculating) … You might need to change the numbers to get a better result

The final adjustment is to decontaminate colors (If it’s needed) removes  color fringing along the edges of your selection…

As I worked with your example, I went back and  added a  ”reveal” layer  underneath the  selection…

that way I could see how the selection would look inserted on the new image by pressing the letter R on the keyboard. Or cycle through the different “views”

So, I’ll re-write this so that adding in your new background is the first thing you do…

Enjoy! and

Have fun

See you in class!

This is a NEW feature in Photoshop CS5 called Content Aware Fill and this is how you can take that feature one step further…

Step 1. Load the photograph in your class CD that is in the folder “AwareFill”. (or use your own)

Step 2. When we edit anything in Photoshop we should practice “Non-Destructive Editing.” (I didn’t do that in class) To do that Find the Layers palette

Menu: Windows > Layers or the keyboard shortcut F7 (function key 7)

Step 3. Dulpicate the background layer by (PC) right clicking in the blue layer if you have a (Mac) Control Click.

Step 4. The layer palette should now look like this

You’ll notice that the padlock is missing… and the duplicate layer is unlocked… (You can also unlock a layer by double clicking on the padlock.)

Step 5, Make sure that Background copy is highlighted in blue (The blue color tells you that the layer is “active”)
In the Tool Bar select the  Quick Selection Tool

Key board shortcut W

Step 6 Using the mouse draw inside Garry to make the selection. If the marching ants, the marquee effect goes outside garry in the tools options bar select the subtraction brush…

You should be able to hold down the alt key (PC) or the Option Key (Mac) to switch between adding and subtracting the selection. The key here is to hold down the alt/option key to switch between adding and subtracting.

One you have made the selection we want to save the selection as we are going to do more than just make Garry disappear… Note, when you save the file the save selection will go a way, it is not saved permanently.

Step 7

Choose the Menu: Select  >  Save Selection

and name the selection (garry) in the dialogue box

Step 7

Copy the selection to a new layer

Press the key board shortcut Control J (PC) or Command J (Mac)

The layers palette should now look like this

Step 8

Activate just the Background Copy

You’ll note that by clicking the “eye ball”  the layer turns off and becomes invisible on the canvas. For now we just want the Background copy active, as indicated by the color blue.

Step 9

We need to reload the saved selection…

Menu: Selection > Load Selection

Step 10

We want to “grow” or expand the selection by at least 10 pixels so the computer can figure out what to draw behind the image…

Choose the Menu:  Select  >  Modify  >  Expand…  and enter 10 pixels

Step 11

Choose the Menu: Edit > Fill and choose Contents: Use Content-Aware from the drop down menu…

Click okay and “Poof”

To clear the outline of the selection choose the

Menu: Select > Deselect

Up Next… make Garry a Puppet…

Have fun, and Practice, Practice, Practice