Adobe Photoshop offers many ways for you to select and manipulate your image. Understanding at least a few ways to select parts of a photo is vital for photo editing.

In this Photoshop tutorial, we show you 3 different tools you can use in almost any version of Adobe Photoshop to make selections of your image. The new AI tools are nice, but for more complex images or photos, understanding the tools is paramount.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What are the Selection Tools in Photoshop?

Adobe Photoshop has several diffrent selection tools, each of them being good a diffrent things.

Shape Marquee Tools

These shape selection tools are the simplest way to select things in Photoshop and are almost never accurate or precise, but they are certainly fast.

Selection Brush Tool

This tool lets you paint a selection as if you were using the Brush Tool. This can be useful if you want to adjust the hardness or the flow of your brush. This tool also makes the most sense to use if you are using Photoshop with a drawing monitor or drawing pad.

Lasso Tool

With this tool, you can draw the border of what you wish to select in any shape. This tool is very useful but can be tricky to use precisely.

Polygonal Lasso Tool

This Photoshop tool is very similar to the Lasso Tool, but when drawing your shape around the area you wish to select, you will have to make points. This will have your selection have straight hard edges.

Magnetic Lasso Tool

This tool is one of the more powerful options in Photoshop. To use this tool, hover your mouse over the edge of the selection you wish to make. Photoshop will then try to magnetize towards lines and shapes to automatically make your selection as you move your mouse. This tool can be rather slow to use, but it can give you an incredibly precise selection.

Object Selection Tool

This tool can be very useful for selecting specific subjects in images, especially if the image has many subjects. Hover your mouse over the image, and Photoshop will give you a pinkish outline of the subject. Photoshop can often make mistakes in identifying the borders between subjects, so be cautious while using this tool.

Magic Wand Tool

This tool tries to select objects by following closely related colors. You click on an area of your image, and the magic wand tool will try to select pixels of similar colors that are connected to the selection. You can change the color tolerance near the top toolbar.

Quick Selection Tool

Probably the overall best selection tool in Photoshop. This tool allows you to almost paint a selection on your image. Photoshop will then automatically find the boundaries of your selection as you paint based on lines and shapes. While this tool can make mistakes, they are easy to adjust, and this tool ends up being one of the most useful ones. 

How can I remove part of my Selection in Photoshop?

To remove parts of your selection, choose the Quick Select tool, then, near the top ba,r choose the option to subtract from a selection rather than add to it. From there, carefully paint over the pixels of the selection you wish to remove.

What do I do after I make a Selection in Photoshop?

That depends on why you initially made your selection. If you wish to separate it from your layer, I recommend copying the selection with Command or Control+C, then pasting it with Command/Control+V. This will create a new layer, which is just what you selected, that you can edit and manipulate as you please without destroying the source layer.

If instead you made your selection so you would only paint within your selection, just grab the Brush Tool after you have made your selection, then get to work.

Where can I find the Selection Tools in Photoshop?

The selection tools, by default, can be found on the vertical left toolbar near the top. Some of them are grouped, so to find a specific tool, you might have to click and hold another tool.