Cropping an image and erasing within a selection

Cropping an image and erasing
within a selection


Now that your composition is in place, you’ll crop the image to a final size and
clean up some of the background scraps left behind when you moved selections.
You can use either the Crop tool or the Crop command to crop an image.

1  Select the Crop tool ( ), or press C to switch from the current tool to the Crop
    tool. Photoshop creates a crop boundary around the entire image.

2  In the options bar, choose Unconstrained, and then select Delete Cropped Pixels.

    With Unconstrained selected, you can crop the image with any proportions.

3  Drag the crop handles so that the plate is in the highlighted area, deleting the

    backgrounds and drop shadows that were left behind from the items that were

    arranged outside the plate.

4  When you’re satisfied with the position of the crop area, click the Commit

    Current Crop Operation button ( ) in the options bar.

The cropped image may include some scraps of the background from which you

selected and removed shapes. You’ll fix that next.

5  If a scrap of background color or leftover drop shadow protrudes into the

    composition, use the Rectangular Marquee tool ( ) or the Lasso tool ( ) to

    select it. Be careful not to include any part of the image that you want to keep.

6  Select the Eraser tool ( ) in the Tools panel, and then make sure that the

    foreground and background color swatches in the Tools panel are set to the

    defaults: black in the foreground and white in the background.

7  In the options bar, open the Brushes pop-up panel, and specify an 80-pixel

    brush with 100% hardness.

8  Drag the Eraser tool across the area you want to remove. You can erase quickly,

    because the Eraser tool affects only the selected area.

9  Repeat steps 5–8 to remove any other unwanted scraps of background.

10  Choose File > Save to save your work.

You’ve used several different selection tools to move all the seashells into place. The

collage is complete!

review questions

1  Once you’ve made a selection, what area of the image can be edited?

2  How do you add to and subtract from a selection?

3  How can you move a selection while you’re drawing it?

4  When drawing a selection with the Lasso tool, how should you finish drawing the

selection to ensure it’s the shape you want?

5  What does the Quick Selection tool do?

6  How does the Magic Wand tool determine which areas of an image to select? What is

tolerance, and how does it affect a selection?

review answers

1  Only the area within an active selection can be edited.

2  To add to a selection, click the Add To Selection button in the options bar, and then

click the area you want to add. To subtract from a selection, click the Subtract From

Selection button in the options bar, and then click the area you want to subtract. You

can also add to a selection by pressing Shift as you drag or click; to subtract, press Alt

(Windows) or Option (Mac OS) as you drag or click.

3  To reposition a selection, without releasing the mouse button, hold down the spacebar

and drag.

4  To make sure that the selection is the shape you want when you use the Lasso tool,

end the selection by dragging across the starting point of the selection. If you start and

stop the selection at different points, Photoshop draws a straight line between the start

point of the selection and the end point of the selection.

5  The Quick Selection tool expands outward from where you click to automatically find

and follow defined edges in the image.

6  The Magic Wand tool selects adjacent pixels based on their similarity in color. The

Tolerance value determines how many color tones the Magic Wand tool will select.

The higher the tolerance setting, the more tones are selected.