Rough Selection Adjustments

I like it when I get told something and I slap my forehead and say “of course” and changes the way I use Photoshop. Here’s one such thing;

 I was making adjustments, say hue and saturation, then applying a mask. But then someone suggested I do this; 

 So here is a photo from my local pole dancing club. I nice photo but I’d like to draw the eye in more to the lovely Sadie.

 So I’m going to make a rough selection around her with the lasso tool;

 

 Now at the top we should have the refine edge button, I click it and feather the selection. In earlier Photoshops you can do this from the menu, Select – Modify – Feather, but will be more trial and error than with later versions where we get the selection box.

 

Each image and selection will be different, so don’t worry about what numbers I have used here. Click through the different previews to see your selection in quick mask, black, white etc, so you you can be happy with your selection and feather. Use the contract/expand slider if needed.

 Press OK and the selection might seem more ’rounded’. In this case, I selected the lovely Sadie but I actually want to de-saturate everything but Sadie. So I need to invert the selection. Keyboard shortcut: Shift+Ctr/Cmd+I

 Now we need a Hue/Saturation layer, so we click the Black & White icon at the bottom of the layers palette and choose, believe it or not, Hue/Saturation.

 

 

Now when we lower the saturation slider we get the desired effect.

 

 I’ve purposely made a large selection and dramatically reduced the hue/saturation for the purposes of this blog, I would recommend that if you use it you try to be a bit more subtle. This technique works great with all the adjustment layers.

 It has come to the rescue for selective alterations like a brides bouquet, windscreens of cars, sky colour……

 Here I have used the same selection but used a curves adjustment layer:

 

 

So, in summary. It isn’t always necessary to do a detailed mask, feathers are your friends. (Unless they’re on crows.)

Right, I’m off to see Sadie and her friends…