Making Clean Selections in Photoshop Elements: From Selection Brush to Auto Subject

# Making Clean Selections in Photoshop Elements: From Selection Brush to Auto Subject

Almost every interesting edit in Photoshop Elements begins with a selection.

You cannot change a background without first selecting what is not the background. You cannot brighten just one face without selecting it. You cannot cut someone out of a photo without selecting around them. The quality of your selection determines the quality of the edit that follows.

Photoshop Elements has several selection tools, and knowing which one to reach for saves hours of fighting with the wrong one. This post covers the four tools most hobbyists need, when to use each, and how to clean up the selection afterward.

What a selection actually is

A selection is an invisible boundary that tells Photoshop Elements "apply what I do next only inside this area." When you see marching ants moving around an object, that is the selection edge.

Once you have a selection:

• Any edit you apply affects only the selected area. Everything outside is protected.
• You can copy the selected area to a new layer.
• You can cut it out and place it somewhere else.
• You can delete it and fill the area with something new.

Nothing about the underlying image changes until you apply an edit. Making a selection is safe. It is the step before the change.

Tool 1: Auto Subject Selection (the fastest option)

This is the tool that has changed selection work in Photoshop Elements. It finds the main subject of your photo, usually a person or animal, and selects it with one click.

1. 1Open a photo in Advanced mode.
2. 2Go to Select → Subject in the menu bar.
3. 3Wait a second or two while Elements analyzes the photo.
4. 4The marching ants appear around the main subject.

That is it. For photos with a clear single subject against a reasonably distinct background, this one-click selection is often good enough for the edit you are about to do.

It struggles when the photo has multiple subjects of similar importance, when the subject blends into the background, or when the subject is small in the frame. In those cases, switch to a manual tool.

Tool 2: Quick Selection Tool (for defined edges)

The Quick Selection tool is like a paintbrush that selects as you drag. You brush over the area you want, and Elements expands the selection to match the shape it finds.

1. 1In the toolbox, select the Quick Selection Tool (it looks like a paintbrush with a dotted circle).
2. 2Set the brush size in the options bar. Bigger for large areas, smaller for detail work.
3. 3Click and drag over the area you want to select. The selection grows to follow edges Elements detects.
4. 4To add to the selection, keep dragging. To subtract, hold Alt (Option on Mac) and drag over the part you want to remove.

The tool works best on subjects with clear, contrasty edges. A person in a red shirt against a white wall selects instantly. A person in a beige jacket against a tan background is harder.

Pro tip: Start with broad strokes to get most of the selection, then reduce the brush size and drag along edges to refine. Do not try to paint every pixel. Let the tool do the work for the easy parts.

Tool 3: Selection Brush Tool (for manual control)

Sometimes the automatic tools guess wrong. The Selection Brush tool lets you paint a selection directly, pixel by pixel, without any edge detection.

1. 1Select the Selection Brush Tool from the toolbox (it is grouped with the Quick Selection Tool).
2. 2Set the brush size.
3. 3Paint over exactly the area you want to select. What you paint becomes selected.

This is the slowest tool, but it is also the most precise. Use it when:

• The subject has fuzzy edges, such as hair or fur.
• The automatic tools keep including or excluding areas you do not want.
• You are working on a small detail, such as selecting just the eyes in a portrait.

You can switch the Selection Brush between Selection mode (paint to select) and Mask mode (paint to hide from selection). The Mask mode shows a red overlay, which is easier to see as you paint around complex shapes.

Tool 4: Magic Wand Tool (for solid colors)

The Magic Wand selects all pixels of a similar color within a tolerance range. It is the fastest way to select solid-color areas.

1. 1Select the Magic Wand Tool from the toolbox.
2. 2Click on the color you want to select, such as a plain blue sky.
3. 3Elements selects everything of a similar color.

Tolerance in the options bar controls how picky the tool is. Low tolerance (around 10) selects only near-identical colors. Higher tolerance (around 50) selects a wider color range.

This tool is ideal for replacing a solid-color sky, selecting a white or black background for removal, or grabbing any area with consistent coloring.

It is nearly useless for subjects with mixed colors. A person wearing a patterned shirt against a garden will not come out cleanly with the Magic Wand. Use Quick Selection or Auto Subject instead.

Refining the selection

Even the best selection tool leaves jagged edges. Refining the selection is what makes the final result look polished.

Go to Select → Refine Edge after making your initial selection. A dialog opens with several controls.

Smooth softens the selection edges slightly. Use 2 to 5 for most photos.

Feather blurs the selection edge so the transition between selected and unselected areas is gradual. Use 1 to 2 pixels for a subtle blend, higher if you want a dreamy vignette-like effect.

Contrast sharpens the edge. Use lightly, 10 to 20, to get cleaner edges without making them look cut-out.

Shift Edge pushes the selection inward (negative values) or outward (positive values). Push inward by a few pixels to avoid color fringing around the edges when you place the subject on a new background.

For selecting hair, fur, or other fine detail, click the Smart Radius checkbox and increase the Radius slider. This asks Elements to take a more sophisticated look at complex edges.

Click OK when the selection looks clean.

A complete workflow: replace a background

Here is how the tools come together to swap out the background behind a subject.

1. 1Open a photo with a person or pet as the subject.
2. 2Go to Select → Subject to get the initial selection in one click.
3. 3Switch to the Quick Selection Tool. Add to or subtract from the selection wherever Elements missed or overreached.
4. 4Go to Select → Refine Edge. Feather by 1 pixel, Shift Edge inward by minus 2, and click OK.
5. 5Press Control-J (Command-J on Mac) to copy the selection to a new layer. Your subject is now on its own layer.
6. 6Place a new background image below the subject layer using File → Place.
7. 7In the Layers panel, drag the new background layer below the subject layer.
8. 8Fine-tune position and scale.

Five minutes, and you have a clean background replacement.

Common mistakes and how to avoid them

Starting over too often. If your selection is 90 percent right, add to or subtract from it instead of starting fresh. Use the modifier keys: Shift to add, Alt to subtract.

Ignoring Refine Edge. A raw selection almost always looks wrong at the edges. Feather by at least one pixel. Shift the edge inward by two or three. These small adjustments make a big visible difference.

Expecting perfection in hard cases. Hair, fur, smoke, glass, and water are genuinely hard to select. The automatic tools will not give you perfect results. Accept that you will need to touch up manually with the Selection Brush.

Working at the wrong zoom level. Zoom in to 100 percent or higher to see the edge quality. A selection that looks fine zoomed out can look terrible at the edges up close.

What this unlocks

Once clean selections are in your toolkit, many other edits become possible:

• Replace backgrounds without awkward fringes.
• Apply an effect to a single person in a group photo.
• Cut out a subject to place in a scrapbook.
• Selectively brighten just one part of a landscape.
• Change the color of clothing or objects.

The rest of Photoshop Elements builds on selections. Master this step and the rest gets noticeably easier.