San's Graphic Blog

Lasso tool is good for minor quick selection unless you have really good eye/mouse coordination or you are drawing from a tablet don't think about making precise selection.

I rarely use freehand lasso as I find it difficult tracing objects with my mouse but it is great if you want something quick and lose such as the example above. I made a rough selection around the flower with feather on, than I copy and paste it to a different place in the photo, similar to clone stamp. With the right setting the two flower blends right in!

You can click on the Lasso Tool on your toolbar or use the shortcut key L to activate it. If you click and hold the Lasso Tool on the toolbar you will notice two other option, Polygonal and Magnetic Lasso tool. You can cycle through the tools with Shift+L shortcut keys.

Polygonal Lasso allows you to create selection with straight lines and Magnetic Lasso will actually trace contour edges based on the pixel reading. I will talk about those two in a separate article.

To draw a Lasso selection, click and hold your mouse, as you drag your mouse across you will see the selection being made. Letting go your mouse will complete the selection.

If you need to add more area or subtract area to the selection, use the add/subtract/intersect icon on the Lasso menu. You can also use shortcuts to perform this task.

Holding the Shift key before clicking your mouse will allow you to add more area to your lasso selection. You will see a plus sign below your mouse icon.

Holding Alt/Option before you click your mouse will allow you to subtract unwanted area in the selection. You will see a minus sign below your mouse icon when the Alt/Option is held.

You can also create two different selections and keep only the intersected area of the two selection by holding Alt/Option+Shift.

If you do not want to select with a harsh definite edge just turn on the Feather value. The higher the value the softer the edge.

Anti-alias creates a slight feathering on the selection to give it the illusion of smoother rather than jagged edge that digital file usually suffers from.

While you are drawing your freehand lasso you can temporary change it to Polygonal Lasso by holding Alt/Option than release your mouse and start clicking as you would with the Polygonal Tool,  once you release Alt/Option it changes back to freehand.

Lasso Tool tips and tricks.

Undoing the Lasso partially - If you accidentally made a small mistake you can undo just that segment without starting over. Continuing holding the mouse and point it to the location where you wish to undo to. On your keyboard, hold the Del key, you will see the lasso slowly un-draw itself. Release the Del key until it un-draws all the Lasso you need.

Moving the Selection after it is done - With Lasso Tool or any type of selection tool still activated you can click and drag the inside of a selection to move the selection area around without disturbing the actual pixels.

CUT & MOVE the pixel to another location of the same layer by holding Ctrl/Command or use the Move Tool and drag and the selection to a different location.

Un-select the entire selection by hitting Ctrl/Command D on your keyboard.

You can further refine the edge with the Refine Edge tool, please read my article regarding Refine Edge menu.

If you need more precise selection tool you can try the Pen tool.

That is it for freehand Lasso tool, if you have any question or comment please leave it on the comment below.  Thanks!

This is part of my tutorial set. Please visit the TUTORIAL PAGE for a list of all the tutorials.