Lassoing When You Can’t in Photoshop

Unfortunately, not much in life is rectangular or elliptical in shape. Most of the time, you have to deal with irregular shapes with extrusions and protrusions (otherwise known as bumps or bulges) of some sort or another. That’s where the lasso tools come in handy. This group of tools allows you to make free-form selections. Photoshop offers three lasso tools: the Lasso tool (which I call the regular Lasso to distinguish it from the others), the Polygon Lasso tool, and the Magnetic Lasso tool. Each of the lasso tools has its own special purpose in the realm of free-form selections. But in the category of simplicity, they’re all almost as easy to use as the marquee tools. If you can drag with your mouse, you’re qualified to handle any lasso tool. Just don’t indulge in too much caffeine. A steady lasso hand is a good lasso hand.

To make a selection with the regular Lasso tool, all you have to do is drag around the part of the image you want to select. The selection you make is only as good as how accurately you can trace around your desired element. You need a steady hand — and a lot of practice — to become a good Lasso tool user. But don’t fret; if you don’t make an exact selection the first time around, you can always go back and make corrections.

If, when making a selection, you find yourself fighting with your mouse (and losing), you may want to invest in a digital drawing tablet, such as a Wacom tablet. Using the stylus and the tablet can make mastering tools such as the Lasso a whole lot easier.

The Lasso and the Polygon Lasso tools both have only two choices in the Options bar to worry about — Feather and Anti-aliased. These options work exactly like they do with the marquee tools. To find out more, check out the earlier section, “Using the marquee options.”

To make a selection by using the Lasso tool, here’s what you do:

1. Select the Lasso tool from the Tools palette.
It’s the tool that looks like a rope. You can also use the keyboard shortcut; press the L key.

2. Position the cursor somewhere on the edge of the element that you want to select.
The hot spot (the lead point) of the lasso cursor is the end of the rope.
Where you start doesn’t really matter.
You may need to zoom in on the image a bit if there isn’t a lot of contrast between the element and the background.

3. Trace around the element, trying to capture only what you want to retain in your selection.
As you trace, a line forms that follows the movement of your mouse.
Don’t release your mouse button until you’ve completed the selection by closing the loop or returning to the starting point.
When you release your mouse button, Photoshop thinks you’re done and closes the selection from where you released the mouse button to your starting point.

4. Continue tracing until you return to your starting point; release the mouse button.
Recognizing that you’re now done, Photoshop presents you with a selection marquee that matches your lasso line.