Watch the video above then read the instruction below which document the actions taken in the video. The video above is intended as a visual indicator of where to go next, the detail of the tutorial is contained within the textual content of the page below:

The Marquee Tool is excellent for selection basic shapes such as Shapes and Circles etc which is great for graphics and areas of flat colour however where is is weak is when working with photography and you need to select a much more complicated area. This is where the Magic Wand and Quick Selection Tools excel enabling you to identify complete/natural shapes that you wish to edit.

To start select the Magic Wand or Quick Selection Tool.

In the video above I have used a landscape image to demonstrate the Magic Wand & Quick Selection Tools as grass and natural textures are very difficult to select in any other way.

With the Magic Wand tool selected simply click within the area of the image you wish to select. The Magic Wand tool will select the area within that colour range that matches the tolerance set in the header option bar. To adjust tolerance enter a value in between 0 to 255 . This determines how closely to match colours - higher tolerance means a larger selection. This is worth playing around with as each image or area of an image to want to select will have a different tonal value to the last image you worked so will require a different tolerance value to select just the right portion of the image.

The Quick Selection works in much the same way but will allow you to draw your selection along the image selecting adjacent areas or an area in another isolated section of the image. The Quick Selection tool allows multiple selections so several tonal areas can be selected at the same time in differing areas of the image.

Have a play around with both of these tools as having the ability to select very complex areas of your image enables you to adjust very complex areas and hence you do not have to settle for something being to your disliking because you couldn't work out how to amend.
 

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