WPET Radio Show/Dave Cross Tip/Circle Selection

[ATR]

New August 10, 2006 Radio Show

In this new radio episode, Dave gives a tip on selecting one circle from several that all ended up on one layer in contrast to having each circle on its own layer to work on separately.

Instead of using the Magic Wand Tool with “ghosting”, he suggests this:
Make a Rectangular Marquee Tool selection around one of the circles leaving a little extra spacing around the circle. Then hold down the Control key and press the up arrow once, followed by the down arrow once. The marching ants should then snap to the shape of the circle and be selected. Interesting.That is all of the detail given.

I tried this and found the tip could use more details. So, here is my question for Dave or anyone else who would like to answer.

The only way that I got this to work with Photoshop Elements 3.0 was to use the shape tool (Ellipse Tool) to make the circles on one layer. Next I had to Simplify the shape layer before I could do the tip which worked.

If I used circles created with fill color of Elliptical Marquee selections, this tip did not work.

Details seemed to be lacking, and I was not sure if I was doing something wrong or if that was all there is...what I described worked for me.

ATR

[Jodi Frye]

simple elip filled marquee works here. Perhaps hold shift key while dragging marquee in order to get a perfect circle...I always do that so not sure if not using shift key will make the trick not work...I suppose I should go check ;)

edit,no trick works regardless...

[Wendy]

Hi ...

OK so you need a layer above the background with just several filled circles on it then what you do is use the rectangular marquee to make a selection larger than one of the circles.

Next hold down the Control Key (Mac Command key) and simply press the up arrow .. :) I just tried it out and it does work

(You can also make the selection with the lasso tool or any of the other selection tools)

I just wonder if your circles were on a layer with a solid background ... in which case it wouldn't work ??

Wendy

[TonyW]

That's a useful tip (and it worked for me in PSE3). Could have used that last week when my green dragon and my pink flamingo got accidentally merged :) . Lassoed the flamingo and Ctrl-Up Arrow (which seems to be a Nudge) and it worked - last week I lassoed, copied, pasted and selected layer transparency to split the flamingo apart :eek: .

326

Tony

[ATR]

Jodi and Wendy, Thanks for the feedback.

Wendy, the solid background was the problem.

As I posted, it worked for me if I used the Shapes tool (Ellipse Tool) to generate the circles all on one layer. But I had to Simplify before it would let me use the Tip on one of the circles. Consistent with your note, it was the Simplification process that put the circles on a transparent background that co-operated.

In my mis-interpretation of what I could do, I started out with a solid Layer 0, using the Shift Key Held down, made several circles with the Elliptical Marquee Tool, filled the circles with color. Then tried the Tip on one of those circles. No Go!

However, when I put my circular selections made with the Elliptical Marquee Tool on that solid Layer 0, filled with the circles with color, did Control J to put all the circles on the layer above (with transparent background), then did the Tip on the latter, it worked.

I am glad that I asked and glad that you both took the time to clear this up for me. Much appreciated.

ATR

[ATR]

Tony W

Also, thanks for answering. It took me forever to type my last response. You were not there when I started typing.

ATR

[Wendy]

Hi ATR ...

Glad to help ... :)

I only realised right at the last moment that a solid layer may be the problem ...

Wendy