photoshop help - SRT Forums

Flame · 08-07-2009, 01:41 AM

Today I was trying to change the color of a set of rims. I remembered seeing a how-to on youtube and it said that I can select an area (using the pen tool) and select an area inside that. Then when I get the marching ants, it will select the area between the two selections. When I tried this, it didn't work. It said there were no pixels selected when I clicked on the icon to get the marching ants then it unselected everything.

HELP!!! What am I doing wrong?

kritical · 08-07-2009, 01:44 AM

it's because you got the trial version...

Flame · 08-07-2009, 01:45 AM

Nsydr · 08-07-2009, 12:52 PM

umm not so sure on ur method there.... haven't seen that one. Not sure if it would work well because ur working with a path tool and a selection tool... 2 totally different approaches.

I use the "magic selection tool" for much of my selection needs. I adjust tolerance as needed for fine tuning the selection.

Basically hold shift to add to ur selection if you mess up and added to much you back up, adjust tolerance and try again. Once done you can fine tune selection by inverting selection to remove pixels that you don't want and then switch back to normal (invert again) to add pixels that you might have missed. Once you have the selection you want you can easily change color by adjusting hue/saturation.

There is a trace feature that you can use too... i have had mixed results with it but it works well on high contrast images/selections.

Flame · 08-08-2009, 04:29 PM

At 4 minutes, that is what I'm trying to do.

Nsydr · 08-09-2009, 02:29 AM

Ah Ok... they made a path with the pen tool... started a 2nd path (adding/subtracting to the current selection).Then just made a copy on a new layer over the original and turned off the original layer (effectively removing the background leaving just the selection that was made with the pen tool).

I have 4 gigs worth of how to videos for photoshop... great stuff... i learned a lot. I'll host em if you want a copy.

The pen tool is a great tool but with a higher contrast image like that coffee cup i would have used the magic selection tool. MUCH easier and quicker in my opinion but it all comes down to personal preference. Play with the magic selection tool... change up the tolerance to fine tune ur selection.... very handy and fast... esp when dealing with individual pixels. I use it all the time for wheel chops and color changes. With the magic selection tool you keep the "dancing ants". If you want a path (ie clipping path) you can change it to a path with 3 clicks.