Selections Are Much Easier
and More Accurate With A
Pen and Tablet

Your Ability To Make Selections May Be Your Most Important Photoshop Skill.

Making selections in Photoshop is generally done to isolate one part of you image from another. Once an area is isolated then you can modify the selected part or apply a filter or move it ... pretty much anything you desire. If you have been working with Photoshop for any period of time then you know how often you make selections - if you are new to Photoshop then you will soon find out how often you will be selecting one part of your photographs or another.

The need to isolate one part of your image just seems to be one of those things that pop up continually in your projects and they can be frustrating, especially with a mouse.

If you are one of those lucky folks with a Wacom Tablet (Graphire, Intuos 3 or the new Bamboo) you will have quickly realized that selecting with a pen and tablet is so much easier. Working with the pen is just, well, kind of normal.

If you love working with your digital photos and you don't own a Wacom Tablet - well - get yours here!

Common Selection Tools

• Lasso Tools
• Quick Mask
• Magic Wand
• Extract
• Pen Tool

My personal preference is the Magnetic Lasso with pressure sensitivity and then the Quick Mask with the pen set to size (the harder you press the larger the brush becomes).

I am willing to bet that you didn't know that the Lasso tool is pressure sensitive! You are not alone - most people scoff at the idea, however there is a pressure sensitive lasso tool and it is built into Photoshop as long as you have a Wacom Tablet installed.

Click here to learn how improve your Lasso Tool skills using your Wacom Tablet.

This is a very versatile tool and once you understand how it works you will use it over and over again.

What the Quick Mask does is create a Mask over a portion of the picture. In the set up of the Quick Mask you decide if you are masking the portion you want to keep or the portion you want to eliminate.

Click her to learn how to use the Quick Mask