Photoshop
Selections
Colour Range
The Colour Range selection is a quick way to make a selection based on one or more colours using a dialog box. It offers multiple options for previewing a selection in progress.
The Colour Range dialog is opened by going to Select > Colour Range. It has several options you can set.
Colour Range Options
- Select
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From the Select menu you choose what colour you want selected from the drop-down menu shown here. Sampled Colours lets you use an Eyedropper to sample (click) target colours in the dialog preview window or the image itself. Next there are six preset colours you can choose from. You can also make a selection based on the brightness values of pixels in the image by choosing from Highlights, Midtones or Shadows. The Out of Gamut option selects those colours that are out of range for computer monitors to render.
- Localized Colour Clusters
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This option is somewhat similar to the Magic Wand's Contiguous option. When enabled, it will restrict the selection to nearby pixels that match the colour range criteria. This setting is only available when the Sampled Colours option is in use.
- Fuzziness
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This slider bar will increase or decrease the range of colours selected, giving you a larger or smaller selection. This has the same effect as Tolerance that we discussed during the Magic Wand lecture. This setting is only available when the Sampled Colours option is in use.
- Range
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This slider works in tandem with Localized Colour Clusters. Lower values will narrow the distance in which pixels are eligible for selection.
- Selection or Image Buttons
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The radio buttons below the preview window simply toggle between a preview for the black and white selection or a thumbnail of the image.
-
The preview window shown here is set to display the image.
-
This preview window displays the selection as a greyscale image with the selected areas shown in white.
- Selection Preview
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This option is unrelated to the thumbnail preview discussed above. The Selection Preview menu allows you to preview the image document with the current selection applied as either a greyscale channel, a black or white background or with a quick mask applied. (Quick masks are covered in a later module. The red overlay appears over unselected areas of the selection preview.) These options are helpful depending on the final output of your selection; you can view at a glance if the selection you have is the one you want.
- The examples in the table below show how each of the preview options is displayed in the image window. The poppies are only partially selected at this point.
| Selection Preview Options | |
|---|---|
 |
 |
| None | Greyscale |
 |
 |
| Black Matte | White Matte |
 |
|
| Quick Mask | |
- Load and Save Buttons
- The Load and Save buttons will either save the current selection and settings or load a saved selection and settings.
- Colour Sampling Eyedroppers
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The Eyedroppers are used to sample colours to make or modify selections. You can use these again and again to fine-tune your selection.
- Eyedropper Tool: This is used to make a new selection. It is on the left of the three buttons.
- Add to Sample: This tool displays a plus sign on its button. You would use it after making an initial selection to add to the selection.
- Subtract from Sample: This tool displays a minus sign on its button. Use it to remove areas from a selection.
- Invert
-
We haven't covered inverting selections yet but this option lets you reverse the selected and unselected areas. Referring to the examples below, in the first picture an initial selection was made of the poppies. The Selection Preview has been set to Greyscale and the selected areas are white. In the second picture the Invert check box has been enabled. This resulted in the poppies being deselected and the background being selected instead.
| Inverted Selection | |
|---|---|
|
 |
| Before inverting (poppies selected) | After inverting (background selected) |
Now that you have a better understanding of the Colour Range options, try them out using poppies.jpg which is located in your NewImages folder. You might run into some difficulty if you try to select the yellow and green centres of the flowers because the dark green background may become selected too. Just skip over those, if you like, and concentrate on the scarlet petals.
After you've finished making your selection in the Colour Range dialog box, click the OK button to close the dialog. Your new selection will appear in the image with the "marching ants" selection border.
Colour Range Summary
- The Colour Range selection is a quick way to make a selection of one or more colours.
- There are various options for setting the target colour, brightness value, or out-of-gamut colours contained in the Select drop-down menu.
- The Localized Colour Clusters option is used with the Range option to narrow the area in which pixels will be targeted.
- The Fuzziness value determines the sensitivity of the Eyedropper tools.
- The Eyedropper tool button is used to make an initial selection. The Add to Sample Eyedropper is used to add areas to a selection. The Subtract from Sample Eyedropper removes areas from a selection.
- Images can be displayed in the dialog box in either greyscale (Selection button) or as the image itself (Image option).
- The Selection Preview drop-down menu gives you many options for displaying how the selection appears in the image document. The choices are None, Greyscale, Black Matte, White Matte, and Quick Mask.
- The Invert option lets you change selected areas into unselected areas and vice versa.
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