Paul Adams: Making a Graduated Selection. 18/9/2013

[Ashley]

Paul Adams, who judged our Print Competition on September 18th, has send us the instructions he spoke about for creating a graduated selection.

Thank you Paul.


Graduated Selection:

• Select the Graduate tool
• (Check Settings, they should be ….. foreground colour to transparency ….. with the normal graduate pattern)
• Next click the Quick Mask button at the base of the tool bar.
• Now drag the cursor over the image (horizontally or vertically, holding the shift button at the same time ensures accuracy, but not needed if you want an oblique selection)
• This will result in a pinky/red mask appearing over the image; now click Quick Mask again and the mask becomes a selection. (If selection over the wrong part of image then Invert (in Image Adjustments)


Lightening or Darkening non-destructively:

• Create a new layer and fill with mid gray, set blend mode to Soft Light
• Now take the Brush tool and to lighten choose white or to darken choose black
• You have complete control to change the brush size, its feather and opacity to fine tune the effect.
• Also, as these adjustments are on their own layer, your original is uneffected and you can switch the layer on and off to see the result of this work.
• This can be made into an Action so you don’t have to repeat the process everytime.