A Tablet Mainly for Selecting Areas With Photoshop? Tired of the Lasso Tool!

maria wrote:

Well, not exactly! I can use the pen to trace the border of the subject with an appropriate color. The lasso tool will then select the desired subject much easier. This is what I actually meant. Thank you!

Eh? You aren’t using the magnetic lasso, are you?

Cheers,
Nicholas Sherlock

I need to purchase a tablet mainly for selecting areas of an image when I am working with Adobe Photshop CS. I am getting tired of long hours spent on selecting an area of a digital image for further processing it and its complement. Would the Intuos 3 6×8 tablet make the job easier for me? Wouldn’t it be much easier to use the pen instead of the Photoshop lasso tool?
Thank you!

maria

Well, not exactly! I can use the pen to trace the border of the subject with an appropriate color. The lasso tool will then select the desired subject much easier. This is what I actually meant. Thank you!

maria

On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 07:32:02 GMT, Kingdom
wrote:

maria <> wrote in news::

I need to purchase a tablet mainly for selecting areas of an image when I am working with Adobe Photshop CS. I am getting tired of long hours spent on selecting an area of a digital image for further processing it and its complement. Would the Intuos 3 6×8 tablet make the job easier for me? Wouldn’t it be much easier to use the pen instead of the Photoshop lasso tool?
Thank you!

maria

Think you miss the point here, a tblet pen simply replaces the mouse, you still need to use PS tools so you would still be using the lasso tool to make selections. Certainly the pen gives better control and is easier to hold, If your "only" going to use it for making selection you’ll only require a Wacom Graphire.

Nicholas,

The problem is that most of the time I don’t have high-contrast backgrounds. Too many times, the borderline color of the subject mingles with the neighboring colors. It is a pain in the neck to isolate those places by using the mouse to draw some solid high-contrast separation line. Then I can use the Photoshop lassos. I need the tablet to draw those lines by hand, not with the mouse. This is the main difference here. Using my hand instead of the mouse. Thank you!

maria

On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 19:53:54 +1200, Nicholas Sherlock
wrote:

maria wrote:

Well, not exactly! I can use the pen to trace the border of the subject with an appropriate color. The lasso tool will then select the desired subject much easier. This is what I actually meant. Thank you!

Eh? You aren’t using the magnetic lasso, are you?

Cheers,
Nicholas Sherlock

maria wrote:

The problem is that most of the time I don’t have high-contrast backgrounds. Too many times, the borderline color of the subject mingles with the neighboring colors. It is a pain in the neck to isolate those places by using the mouse to draw some solid high-contrast separation line.

But.. you don’t need to have a high contrast area to use the real lasso. I think that you may be using the magnetic lasso – which snaps to high contrast lines – by accident. You could also experiment by building a selection with the quick mask tool.

Cheers,
Nicholas Sherlock

I also found selecting an object that has borders that "mingle" (or blend, fade?) into the background rather difficult. Even more difficult is an object that has this kind of borders as well as high contrast borders. My attempts to use a single tool to make these selections got me nowhere. Unfortunately I started out down this path following the tutorials in the books. But the authors cheat like crazy by using hand picked examples that can be selected easily with a single tool.

What finally works for me is to make a (very) rough selection first, then get into Quick Mask, paint with different brushes with different opacity/flow, optionally applying Gausian Blur to the mask, and finally get out of Quick Mask for the selection I want. This works far better than using any single tool to make a good selection.

I don’t use a tablet for this, but have been told that they will make the painting part easier and more accurate.

maria wrote:

Nicholas,

The problem is that most of the time I don’t have high-contrast backgrounds. Too many times, the borderline color of the subject mingles with the neighboring colors. It is a pain in the neck to isolate those places by using the mouse to draw some solid high-contrast separation line. Then I can use the Photoshop lassos. I need the tablet to draw those lines by hand, not with the mouse. This is the main difference here. Using my hand instead of the mouse. Thank you!

<maria> wrote in message

I need to purchase a tablet mainly for selecting areas of an image when I am working with Adobe Photshop CS. I am getting tired of long hours spent on selecting an area of a digital image for further processing it and its complement. Would the Intuos 3 6×8 tablet make the job easier for me? Wouldn’t it be much easier to use the pen instead of the Photoshop lasso tool?
Thank you!

maria

We use the Wacom Intuos2 4" x 5" and find it a very nice replacement for the mouse when selecting, drawing, and painting. The Intuos3 6" x 8" would be even better. I think you would be very happy with it.

g

In article , maria <>
wrote:

The problem is that most of the time I don’t have high-contrast backgrounds. Too many times, the borderline color of the subject mingles with the neighboring colors.

In that case, you’re probably going about making your selection the hard way. Instead of the lasso tool, use the Paintbrush tool in a QuickMask or layer mask.

You do know that you can use the lasso tool without holding your finger down on the mouse button, right? After you start making your selection, place your finger on the ALT key on your keyboard. Now you can release the mouse button and make "point to point" selections; if you hold down the mouse button, the lasso tool returns to its normal mode.

—
Art, photography, shareware, polyamory, literature, kink: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

maria <> wrote in news::

I need to purchase a tablet mainly for selecting areas of an image when I am working with Adobe Photshop CS. I am getting tired of long hours spent on selecting an area of a digital image for further processing it and its complement. Would the Intuos 3 6×8 tablet make the job easier for me? Wouldn’t it be much easier to use the pen instead of the Photoshop lasso tool?
Thank you!

maria

I’m posting a very good tutorial video on using the extract command for you that you might find very useful and much less arduous than the lasso tool. You’ll find it at alt.binaries.pictures.utilities, it’s by Bert Monroy and it’s in quicktime format .mov

But do also get a Waycom tablet, they make things easier.

—
The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind.

You do know that you can use the lasso tool without holding your finger down on the mouse button, right? After you start making your selection, place your finger on the ALT key on your keyboard. Now you can release the mouse button and make "point to point" selections; if you hold down the mouse button, the lasso tool returns to its normal mode.

I don’t believe it – You’re a star, and thank you so much. The times I’ve used that to go round awkward shapes, and then haphazardly tried to drag along a straight line as well – agghhhhhhhh. Cheers again.

—
Regards
Ken…………………..

Thank you very much for the video, kingdom.
This is an excellent video for transferring selections.
I do use different snapshots to paint over a given subject. I can see you doing it in the video, in part, for transferring image parts.
However, I do need the selection process itself because I need to work inside and outside a given saved selection.
First, I draw over the boundarey of the subject to be selected in another layer. Then I select the subject with one of the lasso tools and save the selection. Then I load that saved selection onto the layer of the main image to be modifed.
I also want to thank you all for your response, interest and help. I am going to purchase the Wacom Intuos 3 6×8 tablet.

maria

On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 19:04:32 GMT, Kingdom
wrote:

maria <> wrote in news::

I need to purchase a tablet mainly for selecting areas of an image when I am working with Adobe Photshop CS. I am getting tired of long hours spent on selecting an area of a digital image for further processing it and its complement. Would the Intuos 3 6×8 tablet make the job easier for me? Wouldn’t it be much easier to use the pen instead of the Photoshop lasso tool?
Thank you!

maria

I’m posting a very good tutorial video on using the extract command for you that you might find very useful and much less arduous than the lasso tool. You’ll find it at alt.binaries.pictures.utilities, it’s by Bert Monroy and it’s in quicktime format .mov

But do also get a Waycom tablet, they make things easier.

In article , <Unknown> says…

Nicholas,

The problem is that most of the time I don’t have high-contrast backgrounds. Too many times, the borderline color of the subject mingles with the neighboring colors. It is a pain in the neck to isolate those places by using the mouse to draw some solid high-contrast separation line. Then I can use the Photoshop lassos. I need the tablet to draw those lines by hand, not with the mouse. This is the main difference here. Using my hand instead of the mouse. Thank you!

maria

On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 19:53:54 +1200, Nicholas Sherlock
wrote:

maria wrote:

Well, not exactly! I can use the pen to trace the border of the subject with an appropriate color. The lasso tool will then select the desired subject much easier. This is what I actually meant. Thank you!

Eh? You aren’t using the magnetic lasso, are you?

Cheers,
Nicholas Sherlock

Maria,

You might have better luck, and an easier workflow, if you use the Pen tool to create a Path for your Selection first. This is a bit tricky, on first try, but it doesn’t take long to become proficient at it, plus the Path is infinitely editable. I’ll go at it rough, then magnify and add points, or move them and form the Path to my subject. Save Path (for later, and/or smaller file size, should you need to delete the Selection later), then, with that Path active, choose Make Selection and use the Options Palette to, say Anti- alias, or Feather, the Selection. A mouse works fine here, though I always use my tablet. Do give this method a try.

Hunt