- Selection tools
- The Rectangular Marquee tool
- The Elliptical Marquee tool
- Single Row or Single Column Marquee tool
- The Lasso tool
- The Polygonal Lasso tool
- The Magnetic Lasso tool
- Feather the edge (make it soft and fuzzy)
- Modify your selection
- The Quick Selection tool
- The Magic Wand tool
- The Pen tool
- The Crop tool
- Transform commands
- Free Transform
- Transform menu options
Transform menu options
From the Edit menu, choose “Transform” to access the other transform options, shown below.
Skew a selection
Skewing an image slants it vertically or horizontally. You just never know when this might come in handy.
- Select a portion or all of the image. If you select it all, open the window wide enough that you can see the corners.
- From the Edit menu, choose Transform > Skew. Drag the middle handles to skew the image.
See page 86 for commit/cancel options.
Distort a selection
Distorting an image lets you drag each corner to any position, useful when you need to paste a photo into a shape in another image.
- Select a portion or all of the image. If you select it all, open the window wide enough that you can see the corners.
- From the Edit menu, choose Transform > Distort. Drag any corner handle to any position.
If you are matching a shape that is on another layer below this one, reduce the Opacity of this distortion layer to make it easy to align the two images. (See Chapter 5 for details about layers.)
See page 86 for commit/cancel options.
Transform a selection in perspective
The Perspective option moves two opposite control handles equally, giving the illusion of perspective.
- Select a portion or all of the image. If you select it all, open the window wide enough that you can see the corners.
- From the Edit menu, choose Transform > Perspective.
- Drag a top or bottom corner handle in toward the center; the opposite handle moves the same amount. Also experiment with dragging
a corner handle downward.
See page 86 for commit/cancel options.
Warp a selection
The Warp option overlays a mesh on the image that you can manipulate. (For an advanced version, see Puppet Warp in Chapter 14.)
- Select a portion or all of the image. If you select it all, open the window wide enough that you can see the corners.
- From the Edit menu, choose Transform > Warp.
- Drag any corner point or control handle to distort the mesh that overlays the image (see pages 161–163 about working with
control handles).
Or drag the mesh intersections in the image interior.
Or click the “Custom” pop-up menu in the Options bar to choose from a list of preset warp options; customize the preset warp with the fields you see to the right of the “Custom” menu.
- See page 86 for commit/cancel options.