There’s one more thing we’ll need to do to girl on rock.psd before we can place this image into the beach image. We only want to place the girl into the beach scene, and not the water surrounding her in her original image, so we’ll want to hide that in some way. We’ll do this in two parts: first, we’ll select the girl, then make the parts outside the selection transparent.
Using the Quick Selection tool to build a selection
You can use the Quick Selection tool to quickly click or drag to define a selection. The Quick Selection tool selects neighboring pixels that are similar to the ones that have been clicked. As you click or drag, the selection expands outward and automatically finds and follows defined edges in the image. We can adjust how precise the selection is by changing the brush size of the Quick Selection tool — a smaller brush size will make Photoshop focus on adding smaller areas to the selection at a time and will often result in a more precise selection.
Let’s start building our selection. We'll need to switch back to the file girl on rock.psd and select the Background layer before starting this process. Once we've done those things, we'll use the Quick Selection tool to build a rough selection around the girl.
The following video shows a demonstration of how to use the Quick Selection tool to select the girl.
Watch this video to see the Quick Selection tool in action.
Description of the video:
[music] In this video, I’ll demonstrate how to use Photoshop’s Quick Selection tool to select part of an image. The Quick Selection tool can be used to quickly define a selection by clicking or dragging over the object you want to select. As you press and drag to select an object, the selection expands outwards and automatically finds and follows defined edges in the image. The tool works by looking at the color and brightness of selected pixels, and comparing them against neighboring pixels to determine what else to select. In this photo of a little girl at the beach, I’m going to use the Quick Selection tool to select just the girl so I can ultimately place her in another image. While there are some well-defined edges around the girl’s outline, the areas around her waist are fairly similar in color and brightness to the water. Let’s see how the Quick Selection tool does with selecting the girl. To activate the Quick Selection tool, near the top of the Tools panel on the left side of the Photoshop interface, click on the Quick Selection tool icon. It looks like a paintbrush with a dotted line to the left of it. Reducing the size of the brush cursor can help make a more precise selection with the Quick Selection tool. With a smaller brush cursor, Photoshop will examine a smaller amount of pixels at once, and add smaller amounts to the selection at a time. The brush size for the Quick Selection tool can be changed using the Brush Presets drop-down menu in the Options bar. I’ll use a brush that’s 6 pixels in diameter for this demonstration. To adjust the size of the brush, in the Options bar, click on the Brush Presets drop-down. Then, in the Size field, press and drag over the value displayed and type 6, then press the Enter key. The size of the brush cursor will change. Now I’m ready to select the girl. To start building the selection, I’ll click in the middle of the girl’s back. The marching ants animation will appear, showing what we currently have selected. I’ll press and drag downwards to expand my selection. More of the girl will be added to my selection as I press and drag outward to select the rest of the girl. The Quick Selection tool isn’t perfect, as you can see - there are some parts where the water was selected in addition to the girl. I can fix that using Quick Mask mode. If you want to learn more about working in Quick Mask mode, watch the video Refining a Selection Using Quick Mask Mode, which continues the process of selecting the girl. [music]
To switch back to working with the file girl on rock.psd, underneath the Options bar,
Click the girl on rock.psd tab
To select the Background layer, in the Layers panel,
Click
To activate the Quick Selection tool, in the Tools panel,
Press & Hold, Click
To open the Brush Options menu, in the Options bar,
Click
To change the size of the brush to 6 pixels,
Press & Drag the Size slider to the left until 6 px displays in the Size field
To start selecting the girl, with the Quick Selection tool active,
Press & Drag down the center of the girl’s back
Marching ants will display around the parts of the girl we’ve selected. We can add more to the selection by clicking or pressing and dragging over the rest of the girl.
To select more areas of the girl,
Click or Press & Drag over more areas of the girl and the shovel until the figure is completely selected
Your selection should look similar to the following image:
As you can see, the Quick Selection tool isn't perfect. If there are pixels of a similar color or brightness level near the edge of an object, the Quick Selection tool may inadvertently add unwanted parts of an image to a selection. You can see this in the example image above — some of the ocean was selected when using the Quick Selection tool to select the girl. We can correct this using Quick Mask mode.
Refining a selection with Quick Mask mode
Quick Mask mode is used to refine selections that are difficult to define with selection tools. Since we want to copy only the figure of the girl onto the beach image, and not any of the water that surrounds her, we will use Quick Mask mode to refine our selection and remove the ocean from the selection.
The following video walks you through the following section of content, including turning on Quick Mask mode and using it to refine the selection of the girl.
Watch this video for a walkthrough of how to complete the steps in the Refining a selection with Quick Mask mode section.
Description of the video:
In this video, I'll demonstrate how to use Quick Mask Mode in Photoshop to refine the selection made using the Quick Selection Tool. Quick Mask Mode gives us a way to refine selections that are difficult to define with Photoshop selection tools. When Quick Mask Mode is turned on, a colored overlay will appear around the selected part of the image, helping make it clear what's selected and what isn't. From there. You can use the eraser and brush tools to add to and remove from the selection, respectively. Everything covered in the colored overlay is not part of the selection. And everything that isn't covered in the overlay is part of the selection. For today's demonstration. I'm picking up where I left off in the video using the Quick Selection Tool. For those of you who are just joining me, I have a photo of a little girl that I'm working with. And I want to select just the girl so I can place her in a different image. The selection I made using the Quick Selection tool isn't perfect while the girl is selected, so are parts of the water near her in the image. Quick Mask Mode will help me refine the selection. So I have just the girl and none of the water. To turn Quick Mask Mode on near the bottom of the Tools Panel, I'll click on the edit and Quick Mask Mode icon. It looks like a rectangle with a circle inside of it. The colored overlay is now visible, indicating that I'm in Quick Mask Mode. By default, the Quick Mask Overlay is red, but you can change the color by double-clicking on the edit in Quick Mask Mode icon, and then choosing a new color in the Quick Mask mode options dialog box. I'm going to leave my overlay color as it is for right now. To help make it easier to build a selection, I'm going to zoom in on the girl by activating the Zoom tool, then clicking on the girl a few times until she takes up the entire work area. I'll be using the brush and eraser tools to refine my selection. I'll use the brush tool to paint the colored overlay over the parts I don't want in my selection. And I'll use the eraser tool to remove the overlay from the parts I do want selected. Before I start refining my selection, I want to make sure that the brush and the eraser tools are set up for editing the selection. Specifically, I want to make sure that both tools or using a hard-edged brush, since the soft edged brush will result in the selection having a feathered edge. That the hardness for the brush tool. I'll first activate the brush tool by clicking on it in the Tools Panel. Then in the options bar, I'll click on the Brush Preset drop-down and make sure that the hardness is set to 100%. I'll also change the brush size here, so it's relatively small. To do this, I'll press and drag over the value and the size field and type in eight for eight pixels. I'll do the same thing for the eraser tool. I'll activate it, then I'll make sure the hardness is set to 100%. I'll also set my eraser size to eight pixels. Now I'm ready to refine my selection when I'm done all of the water and the rock. So everything but the girl in her shovel will be covered with the colored overlay indicating that it's not part of the selection. To make this process go a little more quickly, I'll use a couple of keyboard shortcuts to easily switch between tools, as well as resize my brush cursor while I'm working. To activate the brush tool, I'll press the B key on my keyboard. To activate the eraser tool. I'll press the E key to make my brush cursor smaller or larger. I'll use the left and right square brackets on my keyboard respectively. The square brackets are to the right of the peaky. I'll leave the keyboard shortcuts up on screen for you while I refine my selection, I'll speed up this part of the video a little bit to help make things go by a little faster. Once I'm finished with my selection, I can exit Quick Mask mode by clicking on the Edit in Quick Mask Mode icon near the bottom of the tools panel. The red overlay is removed from the image. And I now see marching ants all around the outside edges of the girl and her shovel, indicating the selection.
To activate Quick Mask mode, near the bottom of the Tools panel,
Click
Once Quick Mask mode is activated, you’ll see a colored overlay around the selected portion of our photo, similar to the following image:
The colored overlay indicates the areas that aren’t part of the selection. Everything that is part of the selection appears in its normal colors. This helps us more easily identify the parts of our image that are selected.
NOTE: The default color for Quick Mask mode is red, but you can change the color used for the overlay if desired. The steps for doing this are included in the following accordion:
To open the Quick Mask Options dialog box, near the bottom of the Tools panel,
Double-Click
To open the color picker, in the Quick Mask Options dialog box,
Click on the color swatch
To choose a new color for the Quick Mask overlay, in the Color Picker window,
Click a color of your choosing
To accept the new color choice and close the Color Picker dialog box,
Click
To close the Quick Mask Options dialog box,
Click
When working in Quick Mask mode, we can use the Brush and Eraser tools to refine our selection. The Brush tool is used to paint the colored overlay onto parts of the image we don’t want to select, and the Eraser tool is used to remove the colored overlay and add to the selection. A good way to remember how the Brush and Eraser tools work in Quick Mask mode is to think of how the tools work: painting with the Brush tool conceals the parts of the image we don’t want to select, and erasing with the Eraser tool reveals parts of the image we want to add to the selection.
Before we start refining our selection, we’ll want to make sure our Brush and Eraser tools are at a good size to start adjusting the selection. We’ll also want to ensure that both tools are using a hard-edged brush, as using a soft-edged brush will result in the selection having a feathered edge. Let’s make those changes now.
To activate the Brush tool, in the Tools panel,
Click
To view the brush options menu, in the Options bar,
Click
To change the brush size, in the Size field,
Press & Drag value, type: 8
To move to the Hardness field, on the keyboard, press:
Tab key
To set the brush hardness, in the Hardness field, type:
100 Enter key
To activate the Eraser tool, in the Tools panel,
Click
Repeat steps b-e to adjust the size and hardness of the Eraser tool.
Now we’re ready to start refining our selection. When we’re done, all of the water and the rock — everything other than the girl and her shovel — should be masked with the colored overlay, indicating it’s not part of the selection.
Let’s go ahead and use Quick Mask to refine the selection we’ve made. You may need to switch back and forth between the Brush and Eraser tools as you go through this section. The following table contains keyboard shortcuts that can be helpful while using Quick Mask to refine your selection:
Keyboard shortcuts that will be helpful when refining a selection using Quick Mask mode
Tool
Keyboard shortcut
Brush tool
B
Eraser tool
E
Make cursor larger
]
Make cursor smaller
[
To zoom in on the girl, if necessary,
Click , Click on the girl's back several times until she takes up most of the screen
To activate the Brush tool, in the Tools panel,
Click
To apply the colored overlay to the background and remove it from the selection,
Press & Drag the cursor over any areas left in the image that are not a part of the girl’s body
To activate the Eraser tool, in the Tools panel,
Click
To remove the colored overlay from any parts of the girl and add those areas to the selection,
Press & Drag the cursor over any parts of the girl’s body that are covered with the colored overlay
At this point, your image should look similar to the following screenshot:
We’re done using Quick Mask mode, so we can turn it off now.
To exit Quick Mask mode, near the bottom of the Tools panel,
Click
We should now see marching ants all around the outside edges of the girl, indicating the area that's selected. Now we can make the area surrounding her transparent.
Creating a layer mask
As mentioned previously, we only want to place the girl into the beach image, and not the water or the rock she's standing on. We can do this by using a layer mask. A layer mask is a transparency adjustment we can apply to a layer that hides parts of the contents of a layer without outright deleting them — instead, those areas appear transparent. Creating a layer mask is another example of non-destructive editing, because the original contents of a layer still exist. We can come back and redefine the layer mask if necessary to show more of the contents of the layer that might be currently hidden.
Before we make the unselected parts of our image transparent, we’ll need to unlock the layer that contains the image we want to mask. When we open some image file types in Photoshop, like JPG or PNG files, Photoshop creates a single layer named Background that holds the image. The Background layer is marked with a padlock icon that indicates the layer is locked. While it's possible to make some edits to the Background layer as it is, we won’t be able to apply a mask to the layer until we unlock it.
We could simply unlock the layer and apply the mask at this point, but it might be helpful to give the layer a name to help remind us what the layer's contents are. Let's rename the Background layer to Girl — in the process of renaming the layer, the layer will unlock and we'll be able to make more sophisticated edits to it, such as adding a layer mask to hide the girl's surroundings.
Ensure the Background layer is the active layer in the Layers panel.
To rename the Background layer, in the Layers panel,
Double-Click
To rename the layer, in the Name field of the New Layer dialog box, type:
Girl Enter key
The layer shows the new name in the Layers panel, and the lock icon next to the layer's name disappears.
To apply a layer mask to the Girl layer, in the bottom of the Layers panel,
Click
The areas around the girl are now filled with a checkerboard pattern:
The checkerboard pattern indicates that those areas are now transparent, and now the girl's surroundings won't be visible when we place girl on rock.psd into beach.psd.
With the layer mask applied to the Girl layer, we now see there is a lot of empty space around the girl. We could place this image into the beach photo as it is, but with the empty space around the girl, rotating or otherwise manipulating the image may be awkward. We can fix this by cropping the image down so it contains only what we need: the little girl.
Let's crop the image now. After we crop the image, we'll save our file.
To view the entire image at once, in the Tools panel,
Double-Click
To activate the Crop tool, in the Tools panel,
Click
To reset the crop area so it's not constrained to a specific ratio, if necessary, in the Options bar,
Click
To adjust the crop area,
Press & Drag the corner handles until the crop area is slightly larger than the girl
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