How To Use Quick Selection Tool To Remove Background

Since its release in 1987, Adobe Photoshop has become the globe'due south leading paradigm editing software. Ane reason for Photoshop's enduring popularity among photographers, designers, and artists is its power to make precise selections of any area in any paradigm – a must for photograph editing, photo collaging, illustration, and more. Photoshop features a suite of x selection tools for defining, refining, and editing selected items in various ways – and one of the most versatile (and efficient) of these is the aptly named quick selection tool.

Whether you're a Photoshop wizard with years of experience under your chugalug or a consummate newbie just testing out the waters, yous'll turn to the quick option tool, again and once more, to make authentic selections in an instant. This tutorial provides a brief primer on the quick choice tool and the different ways of using it.

How to use the quick selection tool

With and so many selection tools in Photoshop, what makes the quick selection tool stand out equally one of the most precise and even so easy-to-use tools of its kind? The quick selection tool allows you to isolate an entire area within the image at once, as well as expand or compress your option as needed to include all the areas you want.

What'south more, Photoshop'due south quick selection tool can select not only colour only also textures and patterns. And it comes with a set of refine edge controls that allow yous to make extremely precise adjustments to a selection in order to achieve the results you want.

Note: The quick selection tool was first introduced in Photoshop CS3. It's non available in earlier versions of Photoshop, and so this tutorial will assume you have CS3 or higher. And depending on your version of Photoshop, the tool options may look slightly different than those shown here.

From the time information technology beginning appeared, the quick selection tool quickly became a favorite of both designers and photographers because information technology combines both the magic of the magic wand tool, and the convenience and ease of a paintbrush.

Dissimilar other Photoshop selection tools, the quick selection tool selects not merely colors but as well textures. As you utilise the tool, Photoshop is continuously analyzing the image and so that it automatically selects pixels that are similar in texture, color, and patterns. That results in an verbal pick with only a few clicks.

For the purposes of this tutorial, we'll do with this image of a flower. Y'all can download a copy from Unsplash here. Unsplash images are free to use for any purpose.

Beginning, we'll carefully select and remove the background so that we're left with only the flower. To practise that, follow these steps:

Stride 1

Open Photoshop and load the flower image you lot downloaded from Unsplash.

Step 2

Locate the quick option tool from the toolbox menu that's docked on the left side of your screen. Photoshop treats the quick selection tool like a brush, and then you can find it grouped with the magic wand tool under the castor icon. You may have to click and hold on to the magic wand tool to evidence more options.

quick selection tool navigation, photoshop

Allow's take a closer look at these options.

The brush presets carte du jour

Like any standard brush, the quick option tool can have its own brush presets. Since you've opened the tool for the beginning time, this menu should exist empty right now. Merely if you save the settings you lot create, they'll evidence up here as a preset you can return to at any time.

Brush style

The castor mode section offers three options for managing the selections you brand. These include:

New option: Every bit its proper noun indicates, this selection creates a new selection.
Add to selection: This selection adds more pixels to the current selection, which works the same as holding down the Shift central. But dissimilar other option tools, you don't need to manually select add to choice. After you lot make your first choice, Photoshop will select this mode automatically.
Subtract from selection: This option removes pixels from the current selection, just like holding downwards the ALT primal.

Castor options

Because Photoshop treats the quick choice tool like a brush, all the standard brush options are available to you, such every bit changing brush hardness, size, spacing, angle, or roundness. These options can come in very handy when you're working with very fine details in an image, such as pilus or fur.

For this tutorial, we don't demand to be too concerned with most of the brush options selections except for brush shape and size.

Sample all layers

This option tells Photoshop whether to create a selection from all existing layers, or just the currently selected one. Check this option if yous want your pick to sample pixels from each layer in your layer stack, and uncheck information technology if yous desire Photoshop to select only pixels from the current layer.

Machine-enhance

The auto-raise selection creates selections with smoother edges. Information technology'southward important to go along in mind that, as its proper name indicates, the quick option tool is designed for making swift selections of similar pixels. But that causes selections to have slightly rough edges – and choosing car-enhance will remedy that for a better look.

Refine edge

Once you've made your starting time selection, the refine border option becomes available. This pick allows yous to make your pick more than accurate and detailed by softening and smoothing the edges. This is a very powerful tool for creating detailed selections, as we'll run across later in the tutorial.

Now that we've had a look at the options that are available for the quick selection tool, let's become started with learning how to use it.

Step 3

Select the quick selection tool and make sure that the brush mode is set to new pick. Now, click on the top left corner of the practise image. Photoshop will automatically select a portion of the background, minus the flower.

To go on removing the background, click on pixels side by side to the choice. Photoshop will continue to "magically" select pixels around the flower equally long as you continue to click. If you lot brand a error, undo the action by pressing CTRL + Z, or hold the ALT key to deselect unwanted parts of the selection. If you find that you're over-selecting pixels, your brush might exist too large. Try zooming in on the prototype and reducing the size of your brush for amend control.

With just a few clicks in the image, you should have a selection that looks like this:

Pace 4

Now go to the top search bar and type in "refine edge." Press enter. This brings upward the refine border carte in a separate panel. This is where we tin fine-tune the selection in a multitude of ways. Remember that this pick allows you to soften and smooth your pick'due south edges and make other adjustments for a more than finished await.

Now, your choice should be covered in white.

Refine edge is a powerful tool in its ain right, with multiple options for creating incredibly authentic selections. Options for the refine edge tool include view mode, edge detection, adjust border, and output.

Refine fashion

Refine style allows you to select options for displaying your option and making adjustments for a polish and authentic edge. Refine Style can display your selection on diverse backgrounds to reveal problem spots in your selection. It can also display the original pick and evidence the radius of selected pixels.

Border detection

The edge detection tool includes a special castor for refining a choice's radius, found just to the left of the Edge Detection options. When you lot select the refine radius castor, you lot'll notice options at the top of the toolbar for adjusting the radius of your selection. Use this brush to paint on your choice. The refine radius brush softens edges and removes whatsoever remaining errors from the original selection process.

Global Refinements

This section of the refine border tool includes several options for detailing selection edges, with both a slider and counter for precision adjustments. Suit border allows you to command smoothness, soften with feathering, add contrast, and shift the edge from the original selection.

Output Settings

The output section includes a checkbox to decontaminate colors, which eliminates any color remnants that other tools haven't already cleaned up. When you lot're washed, you can select from several output options to save your pick, such as a new layer or layer with a mask.

When you're satisfied with your choices, click OK to close the refine edge tool.

Endeavor dragging the different options around to see how the diverse changes affect your pick. You can ever come across the original selection in view way by clicking testify original or by pressing P.

Returning to our existing selection, here are the options we're going to use:

edge detection radius 3 px, smart radius checkmark, smooth 0, feather 0.0px, contrast 0%, shift edge -21%, photoshop

Notice that the smart radius box under border detection is checked, and the radius is fix to 3 px. Nether adjust edge, there's a shift edge at -21%. Finally, we inverse the output to new layer with layer mask.

You lot can see these changes in the selection below.

Original:

Modified:

Stride 5

With our choice now completed and saved, hit delete to delete the original background. That brings up a prompt for fill options, which asks yous to choose a make full colour for the new background. Options include black, white, transparency, or a custom color or blueprint. You lot tin can also select the blend mode, which opens the entire toolset of blending options and sets the opacity of your new fill up layer.

For right now, choose a simple white background.

This is what your final image should look like – a crisp, well-defined yellow blossom that'southward completely separated from its original background.

sunflower, separated from background, photoshop

Congratulations! You've just used the quick selection tool to create a highly authentic selection that you can now use in whatsoever Photoshop project.

Every bit y'all can see, the quick selection tool is not only incredibly powerful but likewise easy to utilise. You can selection up the basics in a few minutes and fully master the tool in a couple of hours or so.

The interesting thing near the quick option tool is that it samples colors and textures in the same manner as in the first selection. In our flower example, we started our selection from the groundwork. But we could as well have started the choice from the flower itself.

Hither's another example of the quick choice tool in activity. In the image beneath, we can select the groundwork by making information technology our offset pick.

With the background selected, we can make it black and white by going to image > adjustments > blackness and white. This converts the selected background to shades of gray.

red post box, select background, photoshop

Nosotros tin as well select just the post box by making it our beginning selection:

At present with the post box selected, nosotros tin can change the color to anything nosotros similar by going to paradigm > adjustments > hue/saturation:

change color, post box, selection, photoshop

You can experiment with the options nether hue/saturation to find colors you lot similar. Whatever part of the image you select, Photoshop will sample pixels every bit it did in the get-go selection.

Tips for using the quick selection tool

At present that you've seen how it works, here are some handy tips for making the well-nigh of the quick selection tool:

Apply the castor options to brand your selections more accurate. Merely as with whatsoever other Photoshop brush, y'all can modify the brush size (press [to decrease the size, or ] to increase it), hardness, or roundness to become the best configuration for making a precise selection.
Zoom in when working on edges that are hard to select. That allows you to see edges more clearly and adjust your tools accordingly.
Principal the refine edge tool and its many options for smoothing and softening selections. Refine border comes in very handy when yous desire to get a smoothen selection. That's particularly useful when you lot're working with fine details such as hair, fur, and grass. Select "Remember Settings" at the bottom of the Refine Edge panel to save your choices for next fourth dimension.
If you similar a particular brush setting, save it as a preset to save fourth dimension in futurity projects. You can save multiple customized brush settings for unlike needs.
Enable auto-raise to automatically smooth the edges of your selection.
Practice calculation and subtracting from your selection with Shift and ALT to get the most precise option.

The quick pick tool is one of Photoshop's near useful features, and it opens up a world of creative possibilities for image-makers of all kinds. In your journey toward Photoshop mastery, y'all'll turn to it once again and again for photography, illustration, and blueprint projects of all kinds.