Photoshop selecting techniques

[Justan]

Sometimes I select the sky from an image and make a new layer from it. And sometimes I’ll select the area beneath the sky and make a layer from it as well.

I'm writing to ask if there is a way to select something such as the sky, and make it a layer, and then back up enough to select the inverse area and make a layer from that, without undoing the first layer or having to re-create the selection?

There must be a way to do this that is much less time consuming than to have the selection process. Any suggestions?

[Jeremy Roussak]

Sometimes I select the sky from an image and make a new layer from it. And sometimes I’ll select the area beneath the sky and make a layer from it as well.

I'm writing to ask if there is a way to select something such as the sky, and make it a layer, and then back up enough to select the inverse area and make a layer from that, without undoing the first layer or having to re-create the selection?

There must be a way to do this that is much less time consuming than to have the selection process. Any suggestions?

I'm not at my PS machine at the moment but from memory, one solution would be to save the selection before making the first new layer and then to restore it afterwards, for further use.

Jeremy

[Mark D Segal]

I often find that using Select>Color Range for selecting a sky works well, perhaps complemented with some other refinements of the resulting mask. If the primary purpose were to use Curves on it, with the selection completed and active, make a new curves adjustment layer of that selection, duplicate that adjustment layer and then invert it. You will now have one curves adjustment layer for the sky and another for the remainder. You can do a lot of tone and colour adjustment within Curves for each part of the image.

[Justan]

I'm not at my PS machine at the moment but from memory, one solution would be to save the selection before making the first new layer and then to restore it afterwards, for further use.

Jeremy

Guess i don't know how to save the selection. I tried doing a ^J to make a new layer. That works, of course. But after that I step back to get the display to where the selection was made (so I can select inverse) and along the way PS deletes or un-does the new layer.

[Justan]

> I often find that using Select>Color Range for selecting a sky works well, perhaps complemented with some other refinements of the resulting mask.

Thanks for that. I haven't worked with the select color range feature.

> If the primary purpose were to use Curves on it, with the selection completed and active, make a new curves adjustment layer of that selection, duplicate that adjustment layer and then invert it. You will now have one curves adjustment layer for the sky and another for the remainder. You can do a lot of tone and colour adjustment within Curves for each part of the image.

Thanks. This is in the neighborhood. The layers are used for a variety of purposes but they are only a % of the total image. It may be 1/2 or 1/4th, depending on what i'm after. I'll play with your suggestion.

[graeme]

Guess i don't know how to save the selection. I tried doing a ^J to make a new layer. That works, of course. But after that I step back to get the display to where the selection was made (so I can select inverse) and along the way PS deletes or un-does the new layer.

Justan

Menu bar - Select - Save Selection...

The selection is saved in the Channels palette. You can reselect it by Select - Load selection...  or by clicking on it in the Channels palette, clicking the 'Load channel as selection' icon ( dotted circle ) at the bottom of the palette and then clicking the RGB channel.

You'll then be able to modify the selection and save different versions of it if necessary.

Hope this helps.

Graeme

[aduke]

Justan

Menu bar - Select - Save Selection...

The selection is saved in the Channels palette. You can reselect it by Select - Load selection...  or by clicking on it in the Channels palette, clicking the 'Load channel as selection' icon ( dotted circle ) at the bottom of the palette and then clicking the RGB channel.

You'll then be able to modify the selection and save different versions of it if necessary.

Hope this helps.

Graeme

Also, you can CMD/CTRL click on the new layer to get a selection of what's on that layer. Then, select the original layer, invert the select and CTRL/J again to get a layer of the inverse.

Alan

[AFairley]

Guess i don't know how to save the selection. I tried doing a ^J to make a new layer. That works, of course. But after that I step back to get the display to where the selection was made (so I can select inverse) and along the way PS deletes or un-does the new layer.

To save and restore selections:  http://help.adobe.com/en_US/photoshop/cs/using/WSBB7A7447-383C-40e3-971F-88F5AB2DCB6Aa.html#WSfd1234e1c4b69f30ea53e41001031ab64-76baa

If you are selecting by color range, there is a load/save option in the selection pop-up box.

[David Sutton]

Here is another possible way. I'm writing from memory as I'm in the middle of an upgrade.
Duplicate the background layer. Go into channels and turn off all channels except, say, blue. Use the magic wand tool to select the sky. Try a tolerance of about 40. Turn on the other channels and go back to the duplicate and hit the mask button. There is your sky. You can duplicate that layer and  click on the mask and hit Control i to invert the selection. There is everything except the sky. You can also click on the mask and holding down the alt key move it up to some other layer.

[Lightbox]

I'm writing to ask if there is a way to select something such as the sky, and make it a layer, and then back up enough to select the inverse area and make a layer from that, without undoing the first layer or having to re-create the selection?

CMND+SHIFT+D to reselect then CMND+SHIFT+I to invert the selection then create your next layer with this selection.

[Justan]

Thanks all!!!

The save/load selection function did what i needed and i'll play with the other suggestions as I'm sure they’ll come in handy.