Photoshop has numerous ways to create selections and some of them are easier than you think! Learn how to create simple automatic selections to make masks, selective adjustments, and more.
When creating a selection or mask in Photoshop, it’s a great idea to start out with an auto selection, especially if you have an obvious subject or sky in your image. Here are three of the automatic selections in Photoshop that you can create right now:
Selecting the subject
You can select the subject by using the menu command Select > Subject, or by using the Object Selection tool. This is a great way to make a quick selection of the main subject in your photo to adjust it separately from the background. Or, invert the selection to make adjustments to all other parts of your photo.
Selecting the sky
Using the sky selection automatic selection tool in Photoshop allows you to quickly make a selection or mask from the sky area to make selective edits to that part of your image. It’s much quicker than manual masking, or even using a gradient tool. Access this command by going to Select > Sky in the Photoshop menu.
Selecting the focus area
Another way to select areas of your image is to select only what is in focus. You can access this by going to Select > Focus area in the Photoshop menu. This is a great tool to use if you want to create a selection or a mask and only adjust the in-focus parts of the photo. A good example of using this is to add sharpening only to the focus area so that you don’t sharpen the background or blurred parts of the image.
Automatic selections in Photoshop — Watch the tutorial:
If you’d like to learn more about selections, masks, and layers in Photoshop, please take a look at my brand-new video training course: Layers & Masks by Nicole S. Young
