The ability to make accurate selections in Photoshop is a fundamental skill that requires practice and an understanding of the different tools available. In the next few articles, I will discuss the roll of selections, the tools available, why feathering is important, and various tips and tricks to creating good selections. Before we get into detail, however, we must start with the basics.

One of the first questions that needs to be answered is why do we want to make selections? Selections provide greater control over our images. Most often, selections are used to alter part of an image while leaving the other part of the image unchanged. For example, if I have a picture of a chipmunk sitting on a rock, I can select the chipmunk and lighten him without lightening the rock that he is sitting on. I can also select the background behind the chipmunk and increase its saturation without altering the saturation in any other part of the image. Selections also enable me to move parts of one image into another image. By creating a selection around a flying goose, I can move the bird into another image to create a digital composite.

Photoshop provides a variety of selection tools, each with its own set of controls, advantages, and limitations. As an introduction, I will begin by using the simplest of the selection tools: the rectangular marquee tool. The marquee tools are located in the upper left corner of the tool bar. To create a selection, I press the mouse button and drag a rectangle to cover the area I want included in my selection. A dotted line (called marching ants) appears to mark the selected area. For added control, I can hold down Alt (Option on a Mac) and instead of a rectangle, a square will for with the center located wherever I first press the mouse. I can also use the elliptical marquee tool to create ovals and circles instead of rectangles.

One of the annoying aspects of selections that quickly become apparent is that when you create a new selection, the previous selection disappears. This is helpful when you make a mistake, but frustrating in other situations. It is often difficult to create a perfect selection on the first try, so how can I modify a pre-existing selection?

In their wisdom, the creators of Photoshop standardized some selection modification tools. Once a selection is created, holding down shift will add to the current selection without loosing the previous selection. Holding down Alt subtracts from the current selection. Holding both keys (shift + Alt) at the same time maintains only the overlapping area of the two selections. No matter which selection tool is used shift adds and Alt subtracts. To add clarification for those of us who forget, when pressing shift a "+" appears next to the cursor while Alt produces a "-". Through selection modification, I can start with a rough initial selection and fine tune it to create a perfect final selection.

Another important area for selections is the select menu at the top of the Photoshop window. While a variety of controls can be found here, I am only going to focus on the first four.

• All - This selects the entire image. It is a quick and easy way to select everything.

• Deselect - This does exactly what the name implies; it cancels any current selections. There are times when I am adjusting an image and nothing seems to work. Usually, the problem is that I have forgotten about a small selection that I created earlier. The adjustments work, but are only applied to the selected area. Deselect prevents this problem.

• Reselect - If I cancel a selection, the reselect command brings the selection back. This is especially useful if I delete a selection by accident. Of course, it comes with two important limitations. First, reselect only works on the last selection. It can't go back several selections. Second, when opening a file, you can't bring back selections from the last time the file was opened. Once a file is closed, all previous selections are gone forever.

• Inverse - This is without question the most useful selection modification option. After a selection is made, inverse reverses what is selected and what is not selected. For example, I might have a landscape image with a beautiful blue sky. To begin I select the sky. Inverse will now change my selection so that the sky is no longer selected but everything else is selected. Inverse is useful because it is often easier to select what we do not want rather then trying to select what we do want.

Quality selections often take time to create. In fact, I have several images where I spent over an hour fine tuning my selection. With so much time involved, I would like to have to perform a complex selection only once and then save it so that I can re-access it in the future if I need to. In Photoshop, this can be done by going to Select → Save Selection and naming the selection for future reference. The actual name I use doesn't matter, but I generally try to use a name that tells me something about the selection. When coming back to an image a month later "sky selection" will mean a lot more then "selection 1." Once a selection is saved, I can access it any time in the future by going to Select → Load Selection.

This has been a small introduction to the art of making selections. One thing that will quickly become apparent is that unless you are photographing buildings, the marquee tools are not very useful for photographic selections. Over the next few months, we will go into greater detail about how the magic wand, lasso, quick mask, and other tools can be used to create high quality selections. We will also discuss the importance of feathering, creating realistic edges, and removing color fringe. Welcome to the world of selections!

Chris Gamel has been an active wildlife photographer for the past 14 years. The combination of his biological research and photographic interests has taken him around the world. In 2001, Chris discovered the joys of digital photography and he hasn't looked back. Chris lives with his wife and daughter in Salt Lake City where he teaches courses at Weber State University and Salt Lake Community College. To see more of Chris's photography, visit his web site at www.Animal-Antics.net.

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