Lasso tools

You can find it by clicking and holding on the Lasso Tool icon in your toolbar. A fly-out menu will appear where you can select the Polygonal Lasso Tool. Just like with the regular Lasso Tool, there are minimal settings needed to begin working with this tool. Just ensure the correct feather radius is selected to dictate how hard or soft the edge of your selection will be. A 0px feather will give you a sharp edge, while anything higher will add more and more blur around the selection. Click anywhere along the edge you want to cut out to begin the Polygonal Lasso path.

Back at the starting point, click on your path to complete it and turn it into a selection. Just like before, your Lasso path is transformed into marching ants to indicate an active selection. From here, you can right-click inside the marching ants to see the selection options you have.

If you want to remove the background from your image, just click on the layer mask icon in your layers panel to get rid of the background non-destructively. This version of the Lasso Tool is also hidden behind the Lasso Tool in your toolbar. While using this tool, press the caps lock key to turn your cursor into a selection brush icon.

It can be difficult to know exactly how what width to use for the Magnetic Lasso Tool. That way, you can get the most accurate width settings possible while in the middle of using the Magnetic Lasso Tool. Keeping it on the small side will make the Magnetic Lasso Tool the most accurate. Photoshop can only distinguish edges based on the variance in color or brightness between two objects.

For example, a dark-colored object would have far more edge contrast against a white background than it would a black background. The trouble is, some objects will have a very subtle difference in exposure or color to the background, making it harder for Photoshop to spot where the edge actually is. The contrast value sets the minimum variance to define something as an edge in your photo.

If your image has an extremely well-defined edge, increasing your contrast value would ensure that Photoshop only selects that very obvious edge. The frequency setting simply chooses how frequently a new anchor point is created. Since it has more anchor points to work with, it can be far more specific with the changes of an edge.

On the flip side, having a low frequency will create fewer anchor points along the Magnetic Lasso selection. This can work well on simple, straight edges but will leave room for mistakes along any edges that change direction. By default, the frequency is set to This number is perfect for the vast majority of selections. With that said, it will be worthwhile to increase the frequency value if you notice the Magnetic Lasso Tool is missing edges between anchor points!

Now that you understand these three settings unique to the Magnetic Lasso Tool, continue on to adjust the feather of your selection. You'll stay in Add to Selection mode until you release your mouse button. I'll continue scrolling along my selection outline looking for problems, and here I've come across the exact opposite problem from what I had a moment ago. This time, I selected too much of the image around the person's finger:.

No worries though, since we can remove parts of a selection just as easily as we can add to them. This will place you in Subtract from Selection mode, and you'll see a small minus sign - appear in the bottom right corner of the cursor icon. In my case, I'm going to drag along the edge of the finger.

When you're done, drag back outside of the existing selection:. Drag back to the spot where you first clicked, then release your mouse button to finish.

The unwanted area around the person's finger has now been removed:. You can safely release the key once you've started dragging. You'll remain in Subtract from Selection mode until you release your mouse button. Once I've scrolled all around the selection outline fixing problems by adding or removing parts as needed, my final selection with the Lasso Tool is complete:.

You can also simply click anywhere inside of the document with the Lasso Tool. As we've seen, Photoshop's Lasso Tool is an incredibly easy tool to use, and while it may not qualify as a professional-level selection tool, the ability to go back and fix problems with the initial selection can really help to improve your results. Up next, we'll look at the second of the three lasso tools, the Polygonal Lasso Tool!

For more on making selections in Photoshop, see our complete How to make selections in Photoshop series. Or for other Photoshop topics, visit our Photoshop Basics section.

Each of the three types of lasso tool gives us a different way to draw selections. So simply right-click on the lasso icon and you will get a list of different types of lasso tools. The pointer of the lasso tool changes to a plus sign. This happens because of the caps lock and does not change the working of the lasso tool.

The variants of the lasso tool Below is the list and explanation of Lasso Tools in Photoshop: 1. Lasso Tool default : It is the basic selection tool and is used to draw freehand selection. Polygonal Lasso Tool: This tool is used to select box shapes or flat edges, etc. This lasso tool creates a straight line in between each mouse click. So, just simply click on any edge of the area that you want to select and release your mouse pointer, this will create a starting point or anchor point.

Now, when you drag your mouse you will see a line like a string attached to your pointer. Now, when you click on another point, this line will join both the points together. Continue this process to select the whole area that you want and join back this line or string to the initial point.

So, this is how you select the area using the polygonal lasso tool. Magnetic Lasso Tool: It is also known as an edge detection tool. This tool is more automated as compared to the default lasso and polygonal lasso tool.

It automatically detects the edge of the area or object that you want to select as you move around it, then snaps the selection outline to the edge and holds it like a magnet. Options of the lasso tool The lasso tool provides different types of options as shown in the below image:. Select the Lasso tool , and set feathering and anti-aliasing in the options bar. See Soften the edges of selections.

New B. Add To C. Subtract From D. Intersect With. Optional Click Select and Mask to further adjust the selection boundary. Optional Set feathering and anti-aliasing in the options bar. When you use the Magnetic Lasso tool , the border snaps to the edges of defined areas in the image. The Magnetic Lasso tool is especially useful for quickly selecting objects with complex edges set against high-contrast backgrounds. To specify a detection width, enter a pixel value for Width.

The Magnetic Lasso tool detects edges only within the specified distance from the pointer. To change the lasso pointer so that it indicates the lasso width, press the Caps Lock key. You can change the pointer while the tool is selected but not in use. Press the right bracket ] to increase the Magnetic Lasso edge width by 1 pixel; press the left bracket [ to decrease the width by 1 pixel.

A higher value detects only edges that contrast sharply with their surroundings; a lower value detects lower-contrast edges.