Level 3

Lesson 7

In this lesson, you will learn how to use the Elliptical Marquee tool to select a circular object in your photographs.

Introduction

This lesson will teach you how to make a circular selection using the Elliptical Marquee tool, how to make a copy of the selected object, and how to move the copy to a new location with the Move tool.

·   Open a file that contains a circular shape.

From the “Toolbox”:

·   Look for “Selection Tools”.

·   Under “Marquees”, hold the mouse button down above the small triangle to reveal the hidden tools.

Click to select the [Elliptical Marquee] tool.

In the “Options bar”:

·   Choose [ New Selection ] from “Selection Options”.

·   Enter 2 in “Feather” to blur the edge.

·   Check “Anti-alias” to produce a smooth edge.

·   Choose Normal as the “Style”.

·   Position the tool pointer over the center of the moon and begin to drag.

·   As you continue to drag, hold down the Alt key and the Shift key on the keyboard.

Note: the marquee will expand in a circle and select the moon from its centre.

·   When there is a circular dotted line around the moon, release the mouse button and then the Alt and Shift keys.

·   Press the arrow keys to move the outline around the circular selection in 1-pixel increments until it is perfectly centered.

·   Go to the “Menu bar”.

·   Choose Select > Modify > Expand or Contract, to enlarge or reduce the size of the circular outline until you have a precise selection of the moon.

·   Go to the “Menu bar”.

·   Choose Edit > Copy, and then,

·   Choose Edit > Paste.

A copy of the moon will be placed in front of the original moon. The selection border will disappear.

From the “Toolbox”:

·   Select the [ Move ] tool.

·   Position the tool pointer over the moon and drag the copy to the left.

·   Go to the “Menu bar”.

·   Choose Edit > Transform > Scale.

An eight-handled marquee will appear around the copy of the moon.

In the “Options bar”:

·   Enter 50 in the text box labeled W (Width).

·   Click the link button to maintain the aspect ratio.

The value in the text box labeled H (Height) will automatically change to 50.

The eight-handle marquee and the moon will scale to 50%.

·   Press [ Enter ] to apply the change.

·   Go to the “Menu bar”.

·   Choose Select > Deselect.

Now, there are two moons in the sky.

Conclusion

In this lesson, you learned how to select a circular object, make a copy of the object and move it to a new location. The original object remained untouched. As a result, no hole was made in the photograph.

You learned that while dragging an Elliptical Marquee, pressing the Alt key will allow you to make a selection from the center, and pressing the Shift key will keep your selection circular rather than elliptical.

We showed you how to modify a selection outline using the Modify command.

Finally, we showed you how to scale an object using the Transform command.