Photoshop - Selection Tools

Using the selection tools in Photoshop allows you to select parts of an image to copy, edit or remove.

Below is an image I captured of my friend. I am going to use the selection tools, along with the blur tool to make her face appear soft and smooth.

Using the Elliptical Marque Tool, select the part of her face that is to be edited.

Next, select a colour. In this instance I am going to use a very pale purple. I have chosen this as it will blend in well in to the background.

Using the feather tool, changing the radius to 160 pixels. 

Press the delete button on the keyboard, which brings up another selection of options.

Change use to foreground colour, mode to soft light and leave opacity at 100%.

The result. You can see her face looks softer and very slightly illuminated, to give it an overall soft glow. When I used the selection tool, the area I selected came away from her face and into the background, to ensure there wasn't a block colour when applied.

Using the smudge too, you can decrease some of the lines around the eyes.

Zoom in on the area that is to be edited;

The area around the eye is now much smoother.

Before 

After

Using the Rectangular marque tool.

This is an image I captured of my house plant. The image doesn't look very creative and the radiator is still in view so I am going to cut and paste part of the image and use a white outline so the image appears softer.

In Photoshop, open up the image.

Using the rectangular marquee tool, select part of the image to be copied. On a pc, ctrl and c to copy the image.

Go to file, new and ensuring background contents are selected as white, press ok.

A white layer will appear after pressing ok. Press ctrl and V (on a pc) and this will paste the part of the image that was selected with the marquee tool.

The result. I have added a black border using Fotor so the white effect can be clearly seen.