PSP: How can Selection Tool Improve?

[Nev]

Hey everyone,

How would you like to see Selection Tool improve for PSP? Ideas of any scale are welcomed.

Best,
Nev from PSP Team

[Nev]

Hi there,

I just wanted to add that my question is not limited to the Selection Tool, only. It's the general idea of selecting object(s).

Best,
nev

[LeviFiction]

Add options for mid-tones, highlights, and shadows to the match mode. csh2000 has already made scripts that can give us this kind of selection in the form of a mask but I think I would like the ability built into PSP.

The ability to quickly align selections to other layers, objects, or the canvas. I did something like this with scripts.

Select all Opaque improvement - right now the select opaque option selects a rectangle around the whole layer. I'd like a similar option that actually selects only the opaque areas. Similar to what you see if you float the selection. I don't want to use floats for this as it causes too many issues.

Allow selections to be created from adjustment layers. Adjustment layers have a built in mask but this mask cannot be used to reselect an area.

[JoeB]

Fix a major bug that has existed in PSP since the beginning of time! When you create a rectangular selection and go to Selections>Modify>Expand, the corners of the selection become rounded as you expand the selection, and the more you expand the more rounding you see. I had to create a small script that lets me expand the selection and then automatically uses the Create Selection From>Current Selection to get the corners to square again!

And, as a result of this bug, when you create the selection and go to Selections>Select Selection Borders and click the Outside radio button option, the outside border, again, has rounded corners. So you can only create inside borders if you want the border corners to be square. And it would take a much more complicated script to fix this because you can't use the Create Selection From option because it removes the inside border and only leaves you with a larger selection with square corners.

PLEASE FIX THIS! It has been a PITA for years for me as I'm often creating borders on images using scripts to do a bunch of images and can only do that with inside borders if I want the outside border corners to remain square.

[Cassel]

Not sure which Selection tool it would apply but whenever one selects an object, the selection never takes the transparency into consideration. This is most obvious if the object is round, for example, if you select it with the Magic Wand or the Selection Brush or other and try to flood fill that selection: the pixels are either 0 or 100% opaque, unlike the original object that might have had some semi-transparent pixels.

Could there be a way to select areas and keep the transparency information of the selected pixels?

[JoeB]

I need an option to de-link (if that's the word I want) selections when I have created a selection marquee that surrounds the image of each of the small image layers placed on a larger canvas. Here's an example of what I do and what I'm asking for.

1) Place several smaller images as separate layers on a larger canvas (like starting a collage, for example) so that I can use the Pick tool on various of those images to resize somewhat and also move each smaller image around the canvas.

2) Using the Magic Wand, Add mode, Match mode All Opaque, I click on each layer, creating a selection marquee that appears as if it's around each layer.

3) Then I go to Selections>Select Selection Borders and create a border of a set number of pixels and click OK. With one click this gives me a frame border marquee around every small image.

4) Grab the Flood Fill tool and click inside one of the frame borders and, again with one click, I have all of these small images surrounded by a colored border.

But here's the issue: There is no easy method to make each of those colored frames borders apply individually to its associated layer image so that the selection marquee can then be removed and each layer image has a frame border that moves with that image if I move it around. And it is not possible to actually create a selection marquee on each layer separately and maintain each marquee on each layer and then be able to continue with the process of creating a frame border and filling it.

So what I'm asking for is a way to be able to have my original selection marquees apply - and remain with - each layer I have highlighted in the Layers palette so that I have marquees on each, then with one click be able to create frame borders with each of them and again, with one click, fill each of those frame borders. Basically, using my present procedure, what I would require is to "de-link" each of the filled selection marquees so that they are associated with the layer image they are surrounding. Or, alternatively, be able to have a separate marquee around each layer and then still be able to treat them as one layer for the purpose of creating and filling the frame borders.

[photodrawken]

Joe,
Instead of using the Selection marquee, etc., to create borders, wouldn't it be easier to just create vector rectangles to create the borders? Just curious....

[JoeB]

Joe,
Instead of using the Selection marquee, etc., to create borders, wouldn't it be easier to just create vector rectangles to create the borders? Just curious....

I'm not sure that would be easier or faster. Using the Magic Wand creates a selection marquee swiftly above each small image by simply highlighting each image layer and clicking on it, and using Select Selection Borders turns all of the selections into a frame at once, and the Flood Fill tool fills those frames all at the same time. How would I achieve that using vectors?

[LeviFiction]

If they are all square, it's easier to do in a script than with vectors especially if it's something you do often. If it's a collage with pictures of various shapes then selections are indeed the fastest.

It's an interesting idea. As they are right now you have a single selection that works on whatever layer is active. But this would mean attaching an individual selection to individual layers so that when you act on a selection it acts on the layer the selection is bound to.

[JoeB]

If they are all square, it's easier to do in a script than with vectors especially if it's something you do often. If it's a collage with pictures of various shapes then selections are indeed the fastest.

Yes, the images are all rectangular but can be of varying sizes (height and/or width) although the frame borders I create around them are usually going to be the same pixel size internally because there isn't that much variation in the image sizes that I have to be precise as to the ratio of border width to image size. The border is generally to set off/contrast the image from the background, like you see with thumbnail images on the back of a DVD cover. So selections are definitely the way to go, particularly if I script it. I actually created a script years ago to automate the process when I discovered that the selection borders weren't associated with each layer. I had to manually select then copy merged each image with frame and then paste as new layer. I'm trying to get away from that tedious step.

In fact, I still don't see any way that a person could create a border for filling with a color using vectors on a number of images on a canvas as fast as can be done using selections and then the Borders tool (to make the selection - all of them - into a frame) and Fill tool, which fills all of the frames at once.

It's an interesting idea. As they are right now you have a single selection that works on whatever layer is active. But this would mean attaching an individual selection to individual layers so that when you act on a selection it acts on the layer the selection is bound to.

Exactly. Except, to make it even better, I would first want to act on all of the selections at once (as happens presently) to create a border with all of them at once, flood fill all of them at once, and then have those frame borders attached to each of the layers above which they appear. Asking a lot, eh?

[LeviFiction]

Well what you would do is create a vector rectangle Then you'd select both the rectangle and the layer, run Objects -> Size -> Both, then Objects -> Align Center. This would make the vector the same size as your layer, regardless of size, and it'll center the rectangle around the layer, make sure the fill is turned off and add a thick stroke. But you're correct, the magic wand tool will select all of them in just one to two clicks.

Script wise, you'd make a script that grabbed the layer location and size, and created a vector in the same location and size with no fill and a default stroke value. Then you select each layer one at a time and run the script. You could make a script run through a pre-selected set of layers, or all of the layers but I'm trying to keep it simple. xD

[JoeB]

Keeping it simple for me, I think I'd like to stick to the Magic Wand selection tool to start rather than vectors. But you're right. I could likely do it with vectors the way you suggested and run it through all the layers.

[JoeB]

By the way, the script I originally created had to be made so that the border selection was inside, for the reason I said in my first post here - i.e., outside borders get rounded corners. So fixing that issue would be useful to this issue also!

[photodrawken]

I'm not sure that would be easier or faster. Using the Magic Wand creates a selection marquee swiftly above each small image by simply highlighting each image layer and clicking on it, and using Select Selection Borders turns all of the selections into a frame at once, and the Flood Fill tool fills those frames all at the same time. How would I achieve that using vectors?

This is intriguing to me. I've used vectors in you-know-what to do those frames using far fewer steps than you're doing.

Can PSP create "auto guides" to snap the vector rectangle tool to the edges of an image object? If so, then by setting the properties of the vector rectangle tool to use a transparent fill and a line colour and size of your choosing, it's simply a matter of dragging out the vector rectangle (snapping its creation to those auto guides) on each small image.

LeviFiction's script is essentially doing this....

I prefer using vectors for things like this because it's super easy to tweak the line weight, colour, and style after the fact.