How do I obtain straight lines?

[Sgt Rock]

Hi all,
Today I superimposed a small fishing boat on to an image of a beach scene. The boat had a handrail over the prow. My problem is that the handrail has not come out as straight as it could be. In fact greyhound back legs are straighter. I cut the boat out using the polygonal lasso tool and a feather value of 10. I then pasted the boat onto the beach scene. No problems so far. I then zoomed in on the hand rail to tidy up the outline etc. I tried to erase the feathering effect but inevitably crossed the line and erased some of the handrail. This was repeated several times until frustration got the better of me and I walked off.
Is there any way of laying down a masking line so that anything on the "right" side of the mask is left unscathed whilst the image on the other side of the mask line can be worked on?
I hope this is makes sense (LOL)
Many Thanks in advance
Rock

[emkayess65]

Hi, yes you can select an area outside the handrail and ,with the selection active, erase only inside that area. The polygonal lasso is my preferred tool so I would use that.

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/109nSdhb8kygzYh3QM9qAuBiYxLaVb0_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=109nSdhb8kygzYh3QM9qAuBiYxLaVb0)

For cloning only:
When making tight corrections like that it is preferrable to work on a blank layer with
"Sample all layers" checked in the options bar.
Then you can throw the layer away if you don't like it.
mks

[Sgt Rock]

Excellent,
Many thanks for the info.
I'll give it a whizz.

[msbrad]

Another method to achieve this using the eraser.
click for your starting spot, then hold the ctrl/cmd key and click the end spot. It will erase in a straight line.
m