Photo-retouching and manipulation - precise selection techniques

We've all probably been there. Watching a Photoshop presentation of some sort and the presenter states something like, "I'm now going to select the girl's shirt and change the color from red to green". They then click in the Channels palette or the Path's palette and magically a selection appears around the shirt. Hopefully you get the picture. I know I've seen it many times. Unfortunately it's a necessary step because no one wants to sit and watch the presenter select the shirt in Photoshop for 10 minutes but it can be frustrating. So how do they do this? Many times there are nifty selection techniques that involve channels, filters, adjustments and so on. But more often than not, they simple use the Pen Tool and a path. When it comes to selecting areas in photographs for retouching, very few tools are as accurate as the Pen Tool. That said, this tutorial will show you some of the ins and outs of the Pen Tool and how you can use it to select areas of a Photograph for retouching as well.

Step 1: First, open a suitable photograph. This one looks sad and upset but thats OK. I think she just doesn't like the color of her shirt. We can change that easy enough though. Also, I'm using a photograph kindly provided by Photospin.com. One thing I never mention is that you can go to Photospin.com and get the images that I use here. They provide fairly large sized images with watermarks on them for comping purposes. The water mark may not always be in the best place but many times the comp image provided by them will work just fine.

Step 2: Next, lets get used to the Pen Tool. First off go ahead and choose the Pen Tool from the toolbar. If you hold your mouse down on the Pen Tool icon, you'll notice that the flyout also contains a few more tools.

Step 3: Starting from top to bottom - the Pen Tool is what you use to draw a path with.

The Freeform pen tool does the same but you use it like a brush or a pencil. Honestly, there are not many uses for this tool so don't spend too much time with it.

Next, the Add and Delete Anchor Point Tools do exactly what their name implies. If you have an existing path, you can use either of these tools to click on it and add/delete and anchor point. Finally, the Convert Anchor Point Tool allows you to change the handles within the anchor point.

Most often, it's used to convert an anchor point to a corner point. If you've ever wondered how come you can't get a sharp corner after you've drawn a rounded path segment, this is the tool to make it happen. It can also be reached when drawing a path by holding down the Alt/Option key.

Step 4: Now, once you're ready to draw a path there are a few things to keep in mind. Such as, where does this path go? There are a few choices. Once you select the Pen Tool (Or any path related tools including the Shape Tools), you'll notice an area similar to this in the options bar.

Step 5: From left to right I'll explain the icons here.

1. Shape Layers - This is most likely the default setting. When you create a path with this option turned on you will create a new Shape Layer in the layers palette. Most often though, when using paths, this is not the option you want.

2. Paths - Here's where you want to be. When this option is selected, your path will be saved in the Paths palette as a Work Path. This will allow you to use all of the features associated with paths and is much more flexible than the first option.

3. Fill Pixels - This option won't be available for the Pen Tool but these same options hold true for Shape Tools as well. If a shape tool were selected, this option would simply create a pixel filled object on the currently active layer in your Layers palette. It won't be path or a shape layer so you will not be able to scale or manipulate it, or do any of the fun things that paths allow you to do. However, if you're just drawing a quick shape sometimes this one can come in handy.

4-11 - These are just shortcuts to the various path based tools including the Pen, Freeform Pen, and Shape Tools.

12-15 - These options allow you to intersect, add, or subtract areas of multiple paths within each other. They can be very useful but would entail a tutorial on their own. For more information on this one, see a previous tutorial of mine here.

Step 6: Now that we have that out of the way, lets draw a path. Select the Pen Tool and choose the Paths option in the option bar. Now draw a path around the shirt. I will warn you that if you've never used the Pen Tool before this may not be a quick process. It takes some time to learn but it opens up so many more possibilities to you once you know how to use it. So please bear with me and try it out. Also keep in mind that zooming in can help to so remember those quick keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl/Cmd + and Ctrl/Cmd -). In the following reference image I have decreased the opacity of the woman to make it easier to see the path around her.

Step 7:Looks great. But what if I realized I missed an area? As you can see from my image, I didn't follow the outline of the shirt correctly in one area. Do I need to redraw the entire path? Of course not! I can use one of the Path selection tools. They are located just above the Pen Tool in the toolbar. The Direct Selection Tool (white arrow one) is the one I want for this task.

Step 8: From there, I can click on the anchor point with the white arrow Direct Selection Tool and move it, nudge it, or even drag it's handles a different way if needed.

Step 9: Once I have my shirt selected, the Path will be stored in the Paths palette until I delete it. This will allow me to always have that selection handy in case I need it again one day.

Step 10: Next, in order to work with this path and apply changes to the shirt I'll need to make a selection out of it. To do this, move over to the Paths palette. Click on the Path layer with your work path on it. Then click the Load Path as Selection button at the bottom of the palette. This will put a selection around your path.

Step 11: Move back to the Layers palette and be sure the layer with the photo on it is active. Press Ctrl/Cmd + U to display the Hue Saturation dialog box. Modify the settings to suit your needs. In this example, I've turned the shirt from pink to blue.

Hopefully you've got a different feel on how the Pen tool is not only used for Illustrative purposes in Photoshop but also for photo retouching and selections. It is indeed a very powerful tool and the slight learning curve around it is well worth it. It will make you a much more versatile designer since you can have total control over every selection you make.