The selection tools in adobe photoshop are. Selection tools in adobe photoshop. Selection with Pen tool

In this article, I will explain some of the important ones that are available in photoshop... This article is intended for beginners, but I hope that experienced users can learn something new from it. I find that using only one selection tool can be frustrating, while experimenting with several can be very beneficial.

Selection Tools or Marquee Tools:

The selection tools consist of Rectangle, Elliptical, Single Row, and Single Column. They are the basic selection tools in Photoshop. Through the keyboard, access to them is carried out using the English letter M.

Rectangle or Rectangle Tool

The Rectangle tool lets you draw squares and rectangles. Click and drag across the page to draw a rectangle. To draw a square, hold down the Shift key while moving the cursor over the page. To draw a square not from the corner, but from the center, you need to hold down the Alt key.

If you want to change the position of the rectangle while creating the rectangle, press and hold the Space key, then move the rectangle to the desired position and release Space.

Ellipse or Elliptical Tool

This tool will allow you to draw an ellipse or circle selection. Like a rectangle, you can hold Shift, Alt and Space to edit the circle you are drawing.

Horizontal and vertical line

The Single Row and Single Column let you draw a 1px wide area across the image. To do this, just click on the image, and these tools will automatically draw a line along the entire length of your document.

The Lasso Tools

The lasso group includes: Lasso, Polygonal, Magnetic lasso. Through the keyboard, they are accessed using the English letter L.

Lasso tool or Lasso

The Lasso tool is a quick way to select an area with a certain (sometimes gross) margin of error. To select a site, just click on the image and, holding the mouse button, move the cursor. After releasing the button, the area will automatically acquire the final appearance.

Straight Lasso or Polygonal Lasso

This tool allows you to create a more precise selection (compared to lasso), so the user draws a selection border in small steps in the form of straight lines and, accordingly, has more control over what he wants to select. Compared to the lasso tool, this tool is much more flexible. To use this tool, you need to click on the image, and then click around the area that you want to select. This tool does not require clicking and dragging while holding down the mouse button. To complete the selection, you need to click on the point of your first click or double-click anywhere on the picture, after which a straight line will be drawn to the point of your first click.

Magnetic Lasso or Magnetic Lasso

This tool differs from other Lasso tools in that it allocates an area for the user. I will highlight the following picture taken from here http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1153097.

This tool works well for such a picture as it has only two colors. When working with more detailed pictures, the contrast is not always so clear. The effectiveness of this tool can be increased when working with a Quick Mask, since it becomes possible to precisely adjust the outline of the selected area.

The edge Contrast value shows to what extent two image points must differ in order for the program to consider them as a border, that is, the instrument sensitivity is set. The higher the value, the less sensitive the instrument is.

To use this tool, click on your document and start moving your mouse. You will notice that the outline of the image will start to stand out. To complete the selection of the area, you can click on the point of your first click, or double-click, after which a line will be drawn to the point of your first click.

Magic Wand or Magic Wand

When you click on the image, the stick will mark an area of \u200b\u200bthe same color. The Tolerance value indicates how close the colors must be in order to fit into the selection. A low tolerance value, for example 10, will select areas that are 10 lighter and 10 darker shades than the area where you clicked. With a high tolerance value, the opposite occurs - the range of fluctuations in brightness levels will be greater.

Tolerance is 10

Tolerance is 100

Color Range or Color Range

The color range method is great for working with photographic elements. I used this photo to show you how you can change the color of the sky.

Select Select, then click on Color Range, a dialog box appears:

Here you can add and remove the colors you want to highlight. The Fuzziness option is similar to the Tolerance value of the Magic Wand. The higher it is, the greater the number of selected colors and vice versa. With the dialog open, you will notice that when you move the mouse over your image, the eyedropper will be selected. I clicked on the sky, then set the haze value to 82. The whole sky after that should be white, and the tree should be black. White means the area that will be selected.

Now you can click OK, and ants will appear in the sky, which means that you can do whatever you want with the selected zone.

Pen Tool or Pen Tool

The pen is my favorite tool for selecting areas in an image. It is good for highlighting difficult areas, and in general is convenient for all cases.

In order to use the pen tool in this capacity, you just need to click around the area you want to select, then right-click and select the Make Selection option.

A window will appear:

Here you will notice an option that sets the Feather radius. The lower the value, the sharper the edges; the higher, the softer (softer). Set the feather radius to 1, then 30 and hit OK. Then I copied and pasted the selection and also turned off the original layer. Here's what I got.

Feather radius 1.

Feather radius 30.

Quick Mask or Quick Mask

This method is quite useful, as it allows you to control what you want to highlight. Its activation button on the keyboard is Q, you can also click on the mode:

When this mode is activated, the color palette should automatically change. Black goes to the front and white to the back (if it doesn't, press D to reset the colors). In this mode, the brush tool is used to select the desired area. You will notice that when you use the brush on black, it will turn red. Don't worry, this is how it should be! Coloring with this color is the selection. If you change the colors by clicking on the two small arrows next to the flowers and start painting with white, then you will erase parts of the mask. You can change the size and hardness of the brush, which allows you to select the edges of the area accurately and accurately. To exit this mode, press Q or the QuickMask button.

After exiting this mode, you will see ants marching in the area that is not colored in red. That is, it can be edited. If you need to edit the red one, then it must be inverted (select\u003e inverse).

Layer Mask or Layer Mask

Layer Mask is a useful, non-destructive editing technique. It lets you go back and edit the selection you made for the layer. It also saves you nerve cells in case you erase a certain part of the layer, and then decide that you need it.

To create a layer mask, select what you want to save and then click on the Add Layer Mask button.

The area you selected will be converted to a layer mask. And your original layer is now linked to a small thumbnail.

To edit the layer mask, click on the thumbnail. You can now paint black or white for editing. Black will hide pixels in the original layer, and white will reveal.

He is in the fourth group together with. They are similar in their principle of action, so the developers of Photoshop have combined them together.

So, what is this tool and how to work with it - let's figure it out in order.

What is Fast Selection for?

Working as a brush, you can select complex areas of the image. It analyzes the pixels you are hovering over and then helps speed things up by itself by highlighting areas of the image that contain similar pixels.

In this way, Fast selection it is convenient to use when the image is contrasting, that is, a sharp transition between pixel colors is noticeable.

How to use

Let's look at a specific example. Let's say the task is to select the entire background of an image.

Step 1

First, I do one click anywhere with the background. By default, Photoshop is in mode New selection (these modes are mapped to), so it will select a small brush-sized area for now.

Step 2

The second click will be a little further from the original location. Photoshop studied the pixels of your first click, and then the pixels of the second click, compared them and saw which pixels are located around. Having quickly analyzed all this, he himself selects an area that contains exactly the same pixels.

The mode changed automatically to. Therefore, we continue to click on new areas of the background.

Step 3

I will make the third click much to the right. As a result, Photoshop immediately showed me the "marching ants" around most of the image. Note that apart from the background, nothing else stands out.

Look, three clicks, and almost half of the background is already selected. Isn't this proof that the instrument carries the defining word for a reason? "Fast"?

If you are not satisfied with the appearance of the tool pointer, you can change it to another standard one. To do this, press the Caps Lock key.

Parameters panel

The general operating principle should now be clear. Now let's move on to the parameters panel, where there are settings that make fundamental changes. This is how it looks:

The meaning of all tool parameters from left to right:

New selection

Tool automatically installed to create a new selection, which is very convenient, since the whole point is just in creating it.

Add to selection

Photoshop automatically switches to this mode when you clicked or made the first brush stroke. The program will now add any additional areas that you click with the mouse.

Naturally, you can manually switch to this mode.

It is better to add new selection areas with single mouse clicks. In such cases, if something does not work out, you can press Ctrl + Z to.

In addition to single clicks, you can hold down the left mouse button and move over areas of the image.

Subtract from selection

Photoshop can choose more than it actually needs. If you have this problem, select this mode, and then brush over the area you don't need to exclude it.

To get the most out of the tool, you may need to add and subtract a lot from the selection. Keyboard shortcuts can help speed up this process.

Press and hold the Shift key to enter Add mode.

To enter the mode Area subtraction press and hold the Alt key.

Brush options

Use a larger brush for larger areas and a smaller brush for small or hard-to-reach areas. Click on the small triangle next to the brush size to bring up a menu.

You can also adjust brush hardness, spacing, and tilt from this menu.

For best results, use a stiff bristled brush to create crisp edges (instead of the slightly transparent ones that appear when painting with a soft bristled brush).

Sample from all layers

Initially, this setting is disabled. This means that Photoshop only takes into account the pixels of the active layer. If you check this box, the program will use the entire document and capture all such pixels, no matter what layer they are on.

Reinforce automatically

Since the tool Fast selection creates selected areas very quickly, their edges can end up looking rough and imperfect. To do it more carefully - check this box. The function will make the edges smoother, but if you are working with a very large file, it will take a very long time to process.

Refine edge

I have written about this command more than once. Therefore, I immediately invite you to.

If you spot an error in the text, select it and press Ctrl + Enter. Thanks!

The easiest way to create a selection is Adobe Photoshop is to use quick mask mode - Quick Mask.

Besides, in Adobe Photoshop To select part of the image, you can use any of the selection tools: Rectangular marquee / Rectangular selection, Elliptical marquee / Elliptical selection, Lasso / Lasso, Polygonal Lasso / Polygonal lasso, Magnetic Lasso / Magnetic lasso, Magic Wand / Magic wand.

The Rectangular marquee and Elliptical marquee tools on the toolbar are hidden behind a single icon. The toolbar displays the icon of the last selected tool. To open the pop-up menu, right-click on the arrow to the right, below this icon.

Lasso tools / Lasso, Polygonal Lasso / Polygonal lasso, Magnetic Lasso / Magnetic lasso on the toolbar are hidden behind a single icon. The toolbar displays the icon of the last selected tool. To open the pop-up menu, right-click on the arrow to the right, below this icon.

• Lasso / Lasso

The tool is designed to create freeform selections.

In order to select an area of \u200b\u200barbitrary shape on the image, you must:

• Polygonal Lasso / Polygonal Lasso

The tool is also designed to create freeform selections, but the selection outline consists of straight-line segments.

In order to select an area on the image using the Polygonal Lasso tool, you need to:

The tool is designed to select areas of arbitrary shape.

When using the tool Magnetic Lasso / Magnetic Lasso it is not required to follow the contour of the selected object very precisely. If the object has a good enough contrast in relation to the surrounding background, then the border line of the selection area will itself be attracted to the edge of the object.

To select an area on the image using the tool Magnetic Lasso / Magnetic Lasso it is necessary:

• Magic Wand / Magic wand

The tool is designed to select an area with the same or similar in color pixels. Tolerance parameters are set using the parameter Tolerance / Tolerance on the options bar for that tool. The higher the value of this parameter, the more colors fall into the selection. The tolerance value changes from 0 to 255. When the Tolerance is equal to 0, an area of \u200b\u200bone color is selected, with the tolerance equal to 255, all colors are selected, that is, the entire image.

To select an area of \u200b\u200ban image filled with one color, you must:

Step 1. Select a tool from the toolbar Magic Wand / Magic wandby clicking on the pictogram.

Step 2. Move the mouse cursor to the point of the image, which should be included in the selection area, and click the left mouse button. As a result, a selection outline appears around the point, bounding the area, the color of which matches the color of the specified point, taking into account the tolerance specified by the parameter Tolerance / Tolerance.

The flexibility of using the listed tools is ensured by the fact that the areas allocated by them can be add, subtract from each other, get the intersection of two drawn frames.

In order to add a new selection to the old one, before using the tool, press the SHIFT key on the keyboard and, while holding it, make a selection.

To subtract a new selection from the old one, press the Alt key (Option on Macintosh) before using the tool.

Using the SHIFT and Alt keys together leaves the selection (overlay) of the old and new selections (Shift and Option on Macintosh) selected.

In this article, we'll take a look at various selection tools in Photoshop. Considering that there are different ways to select in Photoshop, you yourself choose which one is suitable for your task. So, let's begin.

Selecting simple objects in Photoshop

If your object is rectangular or elliptical, you can use one of the simple selection tools in Photoshop. They are located in the second group on the Toolbar.

"Rectangular Marquee Tool" (Rectangular selection) allows you to select a rectangular object: notebook, window, house.

"Elliptical Marquee Tool" (Elliptical selection) - selects a round or elliptical object.

By holding down the "Shift" key while selecting, you will get a selection in the form of a perfect circle or square.

Single Row Marquee Tool and "Single Column Marquee Tool" select a row or column, 1 px wide.

Settings for selecting areas in Photoshop

In the top line, in the tool settings, you can choose how the selection will take place.

The first button "New Selection" will allow you to select a new area each time.

The "Add to selection" button will allow you to select several areas at once, and if they intersect, the new area will be added to the previously selected area, as if expanding it.

The "Subtract from selection" button will exclude the selected areas from the already existing selection.

The last button "Intersect with selection" will only select the area that will be on the border of the intersection.

The line "Feather" sets the value of blurring the boundaries of the selected area. For example, let's set "0 px", select the area and move or copy it. The borders of the clipped object are clear.

Now set the value to "20 px", select and copy the fragment. The cutout has softer feathered borders.

Moving a selection in Photoshop

In order to move the selected object on the image, move the mouse over it, the cursor will take the form of an arrow pointer with a small rectangle at the bottom, hold down the left mouse button and drag the area.

For more precise movement of the area, you can use the arrows on your keyboard.

If during the move the tool “Move Tool” is selected, then not the selected area will be moved, but the selected fragment of the image.

Selection in Photoshop with the Lasso tool

Lasso is the third group on the toolbar.

"Lasso Tool" (Lasso) - a simple lasso. You need to hold down the left mouse button and drag along the contour of the object you want to select. It takes patience and skill.

"Polygonal Lasso Tool" (Polygonal lasso) - selects the contour of the object with straight lines. Click with the left mouse button at the beginning of the selection, and then click each time where the straight segment should end.

"Magnetic Lasso Tool" (Magnetic lasso) - allows you to quickly select the desired object. Click with the mouse at the beginning of the selection area, and then simply move the cursor along the path that you want to select, and selection markers will be automatically placed. The greater the contrast between the background and the area that you want to select, the better the tool defines the boundaries of the selection area.

The tool settings contain the following parameters. Consider the last three, as the rest were described above.

"Width" (Width) - the more precise the selection should be, the lower the value you need to select.

"Contrast" - if the contrast of the background and area is high, the value should be high, if it is low - select a value less.

"Frequency" - the higher the value, the more often markers will be created along the outline of the selected area.

Selecting in Photoshop with the Magic Wand Tool

The magic wand highlights pixels that are similar in color. You just need to click on the object that you want to select.

You can configure the following parameters for it.

"Tolerance" - the higher the value, the more the area with pixels of similar color will be selected. The selected value is 20.

The selected value is 50.

"Contiguous" - if unchecked, areas of similar color will be highlighted throughout the image.

Using the Quick Selection tool in Photoshop

"Quick Selection Tool" - with this tool, you can quickly select the desired object in the image.

The area is highlighted with simple mouse clicks. After each click, the selected area is enlarged.

If unnecessary parts of the background are automatically selected, press "Alt" and click on the unnecessary area - it will be subtracted from the selected area. Using the Quick Selection tool, you can select complex objects in the image. It is also convenient to remove the remnants of the background using the "Eraser Tool" (Eraser).

The tool settings are as follows: the first three brushes - select an area, add to the selected area, subtract from the selected area; clicking on the black arrow will open the selection brush options.

Selecting in Photoshop with a Mask

"Quick Mask Mode" is the last button on the Toolbar. You can also use the "Q" key to enable this function.

Select the "Brush Tool" from the Toolbar and press "Q". After that, black will be selected for the brush. Paint over the object you want to select with it.

Pay attention in the settings of the brush "Opacity" (Opacity) and "Flow" (Flow) should be 100%. Choose a hard, opaque brush.

In this lesson we will look at all the possibilities of using the basic selection tools of the Photoshop program, such as "Area" and "Lasso". If you use them each time only to make a new selection, then you are using only a small part of their capabilities.

We will look at how you can add a selection to an existing selection, how to exclude an area from the selection made, and even how to cross two selections and leave their common part selected.

Once you have learned all the features of the basic selection tools, you will begin to use them to your advantage.

Let's start by considering adding a selection to an already selected area.

Adding a selection to an already selected area

For clarity, I'll open a drawing of a fairly simple geometric shape in Photoshop:

Simple geometric shape

I want to select a shape in a drawing using the most commonly used selection tool Photoshop "Rectangular area" (Rectangular Marquee Tool). To select a tool, I'll refer to the toolbar:

Select the "Rectangular Marquee" selection tool from the toolbar

I could also press a key M for quick tool selection.

Let's assume that when working with this tool, I can only make a new selection. How can I select this shape? Hmm ... Let's try! I'll start by selecting the bottom of the shape. It's simple enough:

Select the bottom of the shape using the Rectangular Marquee Tool

So we did it - the bottom part of the shape is selected. But at the same time, the square part at the top right remained unselected, so now I will make another selection, this time the top square. Since I am highlighting the square, I will start at the top left corner while holding down Shiftto keep the proportions of the square when selected:

Select the top square part of the shape.

We did it - the top of the shape is selected. Wait ... where did the previous selection of the lower part of the shape go? It disappeared!

Yes, it was gone. I lost the original selection at the moment when I began to make the second selection, and this is a property of all Photoshop selection tools. As soon as you start making another new selection, the existing one disappears. This means that I cannot select my entire shape. Alas, it is beyond the capabilities of Photoshop to highlight complex shapes ... Thank you for being with us!

But seriously speaking, there is, of course, a way to select our shape, although not in the same way as we did with you - not by alternately selecting its parts. What we need to do is add a new selection to the already selected area. After studying this action, you will be surprised how before you could work in Photoshop without it.

Four basic settings for the selection tool

Four main icons with settings for the selection tool

They may look a little odd, but in fact each of these icons are important because they represent a specific setting for working with our selections. The first icon on the left, which I selected in the picture above, is called "New selection area"(New Selection), and it was she who was initially selected when working in Photoshop. Its purpose is to create a new selection each time. If you never knew about these four settings, you would always use the first icon by default.

The second icon, located directly next to the first, is responsible for the Add To Selection. We will study it further.

Add to selection icon in the tool settings area

With this setting selected, I will add any subsequent selection to the previous selection I made. Let's see how this setting will help us make our shape stand out.

First of all, I will click on the icon "New selection area", since I'm going to select the bottom of the shape again, as I did at the beginning of the lesson:

Select the bottom part of our shape again.

Now the bottom of the shape is selected and I'm going to click on the second icon "Add to selection"to select the entire shape. To quickly select an icon, I just press and hold the key Shiftbefore starting a new selection, without accessing the settings area. As soon as you press the key Shift, you will see a small plus sign in the lower right corner of the cursor, which will mean the selection of the second icon:

Hold down the Shift key to quickly navigate to the Add to Selection icon. In this case, a small plus sign will appear in the lower right corner of the cursor

Let's try to select the top square part again. While holding down the key Shift, I'm going to make another selection of the square section at the top of the shape. This time, I will select not only the upper square part, but also a slightly lower rectangular part, so that the second selection partially coincides with the first:

Make the second selection so that it slightly overlaps the first

A quick note ... you don't have to hold the key all the time Shiftpressed while you make additional selections. All you have to do is press a key Shiftand click with the mouse to start making a selection. Once you start selecting the area you want, you can safely release the Shift key.

Now, after I made the second selection, which should be added to the first, I'll release the mouse button and see what happens:

Thanks to customization "Add to selection"which I applied by just pressing the key Shift, my second selection was added to the first, and the shape, which at first seemed incredibly difficult to select, was selected entirely.

Let's take a real-life example to see how useful customization is. "Add to selection".

Using the "Add to Selection" setting to select the eyes

One of the most frequently asked questions I hear is, “How do I highlight both eyes at once? I select one eye using the tool "Lasso"but then when I start to select the second eye, the selection around the first eye disappears. " Let's see how this problem will help us to solve the setting "Add to selection"... Here's a photo I'll be working with:

Original image

I'm going to pick a tool "Lasso" (Lasso) in the toolbar:

Selecting the Lasso Tool from the Toolbox

I could also press the key to select the tool L.

With the Lasso selected, I'm going to select the left eye first:

Select the left eye using the Lasso Tool

Using normal instrument settings "Lasso" after selecting the left eye (to us the left, her right), if I started to select the right eye, the selection around the left eye would disappear. But not with the setting “ Add to selection "! I'm going to press the key again Shiftto quickly select an option, see a small plus sign in the lower right corner of the cursor, and with the Shift key pressed, start selecting the second eye. I don't have to hold the key all the time Shift pressed. Once I start making a selection, I can release it. So I go ahead and highlight the second eye:

Select the other eye using the "Add to selection" setting. It's simple enough

And so we did it! Both eyes are now highlighted thanks to customization "Add to selection".

In the first case, when we used the setting "Add to selection"to select the entire shape, I partially overlapped the selections to create one overall selection. In the eyes example, my selections were detached from each other, but eventually Photoshop merged them into one selection as well. I could highlight the girl's hair, eyebrows, lips and teeth separately from each other, and since I would use the setting each time "Add to selection"Photoshop would still treat them as one selection.

So, we learned the setting "Add to selection"... Let's now focus on customization.

Before we learn how the setup works Subtract from selection(Subtract From Selection), let's see where we can find it. To do this, let's go back to the settings area and take another look at the four small icons - settings Subtract from selection third from left:

Subtract from selected area setting icon in the settings area

Now that we know where the setting is located, let's look at how to apply it.

Sometimes, when selecting a complex shape, it is much easier to select the entire shape and then exclude unnecessary parts. Let's go back to our shape, which we worked with at the beginning of the tutorial:

In the first case, when I selected the shape, I selected the bottom part first, and then I used the setting "Add to selection" for additional highlighting of the upper square part. This time, to show you how the Subtract From Selection setting works, I'm going to first select the entire shape. I will use the tool again "Rectangular area"and quickly make a rectangular selection for the entire shape:

Select the entire shape with the Rectangular Marquee Tool

It seems to work out, except for one detail - when selecting the entire shape at once, I also selected the empty area in the upper left corner. Thanks to customization Subtract from selection, I can easily eliminate this miss.

Just like with the setting "Add to selection" to select a setting Subtract from selection no need to go to the settings area every time. All you need to do is press and hold the key Alt (Win) / Option (Mac), as a result of which a small minus will appear in the lower right corner of the mouse cursor, which will mean the choice of the setting:

Press and hold Alt / Option to quickly select the Subtract From Selection setting

Using the tool "Rectangular area" and customization Subtract from selectionI'm going to select the empty area at the top left and exclude it from the initial selection of the entire shape. While holding down the Alt / Option key, I'll start by selecting the upper-left corner of the empty area, moving slightly away from the original selection, and continue the selection down to the right until the entire empty area that I want to exclude is selected:

Select the area you want to exclude from the initial selection of the shape

Same as when working with the setting "Add to selection", you don't need to hold down the Alt / Option key all the time. All you have to do is press and hold the key until you start the selection with the mouse button. After that, you can safely release the Alt / Option key.

Now, after I have selected the unnecessary area that I want to exclude, I just need to release the mouse button and please:

The empty area at the top of the shape is no longer in the original selection

So, thanks to setting Subtract from selection the empty area at the top of the shape is no longer in the original selection, and only the shape itself remains selected.

Let's wrap up our familiarity with the selection tools by examining the setting "Intersection with selection".

Intersection with selection setting

We've seen how to add a selection and how to exclude unwanted areas from it. Now it's time to explore the last setting (Intersect With Selection). First, let's revisit the settings area to find the setting. "Intersect selection"and then examine its application. Of the four small, but such important icons, the setting we need is the first from the right edge:

Intersection with selected area setting icon in the settings area

As with the previous settings, the setting "Intersect selection"can be selected by clicking on the icon in the preferences area or by pressing the Shift + Alt (Win) / Shift + Option (Mac) keys. So, let's repeat once again the keyboard shortcut to select our settings:

Shift \u003d "Add to selection"

Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) \u003d "Subtract from selection"

Shift + Alt (Win) / Shift + Option (Mac) \u003d Intersect Selection

After determining how to select a setting "Intersect selection", let's look at what she is responsible for. To do this, we need an image of a shape like this:

This figure consists of two red crescent moons side by side, with an empty white space between them. Let's imagine that we need to select this empty space. You can try to take the tool "Lasso", provided that you can draw perfectly even circles. You can use the tool "Magic wand" (Magic Wand) in this case, since the area we need to select is uniformly white, but what if it were not the same color? What if it was a color photograph and we needed to select part of the shape? Tool "Magic wand" then it would hardly have helped us. So what to do?

To select round and oval shapes, the program has a tool "Oval region"(Elliptical Marquee Tool). Let's try to use it.

First, I'll select this tool from the toolbar:

Selecting the "Oval Region" tool from the toolbar

Then by selecting the tool "Oval region", I'm going to make a selection of a circular shape around the left crescent. As I select, I will hold down the key Shift, to keep the shape of the circle:

Select the left crescent with the Oval Marquee Tool. Press the Shift key to keep the circle shape on selection

By selecting the left side of the shape, I also selected the central white area, but my task is to select only the white space inside the shape. You can try using the setting "Add to selection" and make another selection of the right crescent:

Select the right crescent using the "Add to selection" setting

Did not work out! All we have achieved is that both crescent moons are highlighted. Maybe make a selection of the right crescent using the setting Subtract from selection:

Select the right crescent using the "Subtract from selection" setting

Again it did not work! The Subtract From Selection setting helped me to get only the left crescent to be selected, but again this is not what I wanted. It's time to take advantage of the setting "Intersect selection".

Customization "Intersect selection" works like this: it compares the selection you have already made and the selection you are currently making, and only selects the area where the two selections intersect. It turns out if I first selected the left crescent along with the empty area, and then made a round selection of the right crescent using the setting "Intersect selection", also including white space in the center, then, ultimately, there would be only a selection of the white area in the center of the shape - the intersection of the two selections. But this is exactly what I need!

Let's try to select the required area. Selecting the left crescent, I use the tool to "Oval region" make a second selection of the crescent on the right, so that the intersection of the selections is the white space in the center. In doing so, I'll press the Shift + Alt (Win) / Shift + Option (Mac) keyboard shortcut. If you look at the lower right corner of the mouse cursor (in the figure it is circled in red), you can see a small cross, indicating the choice of the setting "Intersect selection":

Selecting the right crescent using the "Intersect with selection" setting

As with the previous settings, once you start making a selection, you can stop holding down the Shift and Alt / Option keys.

Using the setting "Intersect selection", I also highlighted the right crescent. Now the two selected selections intersect in the central white area, which is what I want to ultimately select. All that remains for me to do is release the mouse button, and the program itself will leave selected only the white area in the center of the shape - the intersection of the selections:

We easily selected the white area between the two crescents using the Intersect With Selection setting.

We have completed the task. By setting "Intersect selection" it was easy for us to highlight the white area between the two crescents.

So, we learned about all the possibilities of the basic selection tools in Photoshop. Now we can not only make new selections, but also add selections to an existing selection, exclude unnecessary areas from the selection made and leave only the intersection of several selections selected. We have reached our full potential! We can embrace the whole world! The prospects are great! We ... Okay, okay, I'm finishing.

Transfer:Ksenia Rudenko