Photoshop new feature – Select and Mask workspace

Have a look at the feature and improve your Photoshop skills

The latest version of Photoshop in the Creative Cloud (CC) has a new feature that makes it even easier to select and mask images. This dedicated new workspace helps you make precise selections and masks in your work and is particularly helpful to mask difficult images like hair for example.

Note that the select and mask workspace replaces the Refine Edge dialog in earlier versions of Photoshop, offering the same functionality in a streamlined way.

How to launch the Select and Mask workspace

Open an image in Photoshop and do one of the following:

Choose Select > Select and Mask.

Press Ctrl+Alt+R (Windows) or Cmd+Option+R (Mac).

Enable a selection tool, such as Quick Selection, Magic Wand, or Lasso. Now, click Select and Mask in the Options bar.

Image source: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/select-mask.html

In the Properties panel for a Layer Mask, click Select and Mask.

In the image below, you can see the location of the new features.

A - Tool options

B - Tools

C - Adjustable properties

Image source: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/select-mask.html

A brief look at the tools

The Select and Mask workspace features are a combination of familiar and new tools, as you can see below:

Image source: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/select-mask.html

The refine edge brush, for example, is now even more precise and easy to use. A good example of the utilization of this tool is to mask hair.

Refine the Selection

You can also check the work that you have been doing using the view mode settings. This is also a feature to help you to make more precise adjustments in your project.

How to launch the View Mode

From the View pop-up menu, choose one of the following view modes for your selection:

Onion Skin (O): Visualizes the selection as an animation-style onion skin scheme

Marching Ants (M): Visualizes the selection borders as marching ants

Overlay (V): Visualizes the selection as a transparent colour overlay. Unselected areas are displayed in that colour. The default colour is red.

On Black (A): Places the selection over a black background

On White (T): Places the selection over a white background

Black & White (K): Visualizes the selection as a black and white mask

On Layers (Y): Surrounds the selection with areas of transparency

Press F to cycle through the modes and X to temporarily disable all modes.

Show Edge: Shows the area of refinement.

Show Original: Shows the original selection.

High Quality Preview: Renders an accurate preview of the changes. This option may affect performance. When this option is selected, while working on the image, hold down the left mouse button (mouse down) to view a higher-resolution preview. When this option is deselected, a lower-resolution preview is displayed even on mouse down.

Transparency/Opacity: Sets transparency/opacity for the View Mode. This setting applies beyond the Select and Mask workspace to the Overlay view mode in classic Photoshop.

Master your Photoshop skills

If you want to master your Photoshop skills, learning from the experts take a moment to look at our Photoshop and Adobe classes. At New Horizons Ireland we provide a wide range of Adobe classes which can help you in your career development. Click here to see all our Adobe courses.

At New Horizons Ireland website you can also find a couple of useful downloaded resources to help in your daily routine, such as Adobe Cheat sheets and a selection of Toolbar shortcuts. Click here to see all of them.