Meet the Players.....

I am sure you have noticed that when using some of the selection tools once you make the selection you find a part you missed or you are just in need of an unusual shape but aren't steady enough with the freehand tool to get the straight lines you need. Here, we are going to make a couple simple buttons for a web page to show how to make odd shaped selections by adding and subtracting from the original selection we created. Open a new image 200 x 200 white a white bg. Make sure it is 24 million in colors. Choose the regular selection tool, set it to rectangle, line width to 1, antialias checked and feather to "0". (Fig.1) Now draw out a selection on your canvas in the middle but leave enough room on the sides to add to the selection.(Fig.2)

Now go to your control palette again and this time change the shape to circle leave everything else set the way it is. Place the mouse over the selected area but do NOT CLICK!! Notice the icon is a four headed arrow? This enables you to move the selection as we discussed on the last page. Now hold down your SHIFT KEY and place the cursor over the selected area again but do NOT CLICK! Notice that we do not get the four headed arrow the cursor icon should now show as the regular cross-hair with a + sign and a small rectangle. This means we can add to the selection. Now, still holding down the shift key, start anywhere in your selection, you can see where I started indicated by the red dot, (Fig.3 )make sure to continue holding down the shift key and draw out the shape then release the mouse and WhALAA! You have added to your selection.(Fig.3) If you are not happy with your selection, remember that UNDO is your friend lol choose EDIT and then UNDO. Grab the flood fill tool and fill the selection with some color, whatever you like is fine since this is just practice and we probably won't use it for anything. (Fig.4) Now go to SELECTIONS and then HIDE MARQUEE. Your marching ants should disappear at this point. Don't worry, you still have your selection, the marching ants are still there technically but they are just invisible. We are going to use the bevel effect and it is easier to see how it is affecting your image when the marching ants are invisible. (Fig.5)

Now choose Effects/3D/Inner Bevel. A dialog box will appear. Enter your settings to match mine below. If the image below is not clear enough for you click it to see it full size.

See how simple that was to add to our selection? Now if you want to subtract from an existing selection, all you have to do is hold down the CONTROL key instead of the shift key and draw out the shape of the selection where you want to remove from. It's just that simple !! hee hee Now save the image as a psp file if you have not already done so. Keep the image open though because we are going to use it real quick to show you what the alpha channel selections are. There are a lot of things you can do with them and they are considered a more advanced feature so I won't go in to great detail other than to give you a general idea of what they can be used for.

Working on the same image as above, go to SELECTIONS and then remove the HIDE MARQUEE so that your marching ants will reappear. Then choose SELECTIONS again and then this time choose SAVE TO ALPHA CHANNEL. A dialog box will appear. (Fig.1) The top part shows any open images that have selections on them. Currently we have only the one so clicking the arrow beside it will not show any others. Click OK in this dialog box and then another box will appear. (Fig.2) In this second box you can name the selection. Just call it button for now. Then click OK. Our selection is now saved to the alpha channel. Now choose SELECTIONS and SELECT NONE. Your marching ants should disappear. (Fig.3)

We are going to add some text to our button so set the foreground color to null and your background to a nice color that will show well on whatever color button you have. I chose white. Choose the text tool, (the letter on the toolbar) and then your dialog box will appear. Choose your font and the appropriate size to match your button. Make sure that the FLOATING option is checked and that the antialias is also checked. Type some text, your name or whatever you like then click OK. Position the text on your button (Fig.4) and then go to EFFECTS/3D/Drop Shadow. The drop shadow dialog box will appear, play a little with the settings to get the right effect, you can use the same as me for a starting point if you like, I had both offsets set to 1, Opacity set to 31, blur set to 2.4 and the shadow color black. Click the eyeball to preview the shadow effect on your image. (Fig.5)Then choose selections and select none.

Now here is where our alpha channel selection comes in, we want to add a drop shadow to our button to make it a little more 3D looking so go to SELECTIONS and then LOAD from alpha channel. The dialog box you seen before should appear in front of you, choose our selection from earlier, the button, it should be the only one there unless you have another image open in PSP with a selection, then click OK. (Fig.6) You should then see your selection reappear around your button. (Fig.7) Then choose EFFECTS/3D/Drop Shadow and use the settings you used on the text if you like or you can play with the numbers a little if you like and then click OK. You should then see your button with a drop shadow behind it. Click SELECTIONS and select none and there you have your button. That about sums it up for adding and subtracting and the alpha channels. Will do a quickie on the magic wand on the next page but it is so simple you probably don't even need it. If you do though head on over.