Fixing a selected area

[dianaadler Profile]

I have a photo that needs the sky to be changed. I selected the area and clicked ok. I opened the gallery to look at some sky options. I noticed that I missed an area and want to go back and touch up my selected sky area before I apply a new sky from the gallery. How do I re-edit ... or is it not possible? Do I need to start over (which would be a pain since this is a complicated sky to highlight.

[Richard Briggs Profile]

Here's how....

Do as you have done - You have selected an area, pressed 'Confirm Selection and Browse Effects', you click on a particular sky effect and, finally, you click OK. All done. Except....

You notice you missed a bit when you selected the area originally. Or maybe you selected too much.

Now hover over the mask (black and white window) at top right hand corner and then click on it. You can now add or erase to the selection as normal.

If you want to fade the whole effect (maybe to blend your original sky with the new one) then click the left hand image of the pair (not the base image) and you can do this.

A question I have for someone is, having spent time getting the selection just right, can I go back and select another sky?

Richard

[eadams Profile]

A question I have for someone is, having spent time getting the selection just right, can I go back and select another sky?

Sure! Assuming you have made a selection of the sky, instead of just clicking on the Effects Gallery icon at the top right of your screen, just hover the mouse over it. You will see that the selection you have made is given as an option to select effects for. Just select the selection you want to use.

SPE reuse selection.JPG (46.91 KiB) Viewed 11886 times

If you select "sky" you will get all the sky backgrounds to choose from. You can apply any number of sky effects in this manner to your image, then click on them one by one to see which one you like the best. The others can be deleted by clicking on the little x that appears when you hover over the thumbnail with your mouse. Below I applied 3 sky effects to my image.

SPE reuse selection multiple times.JPG (27.75 KiB) Viewed 11886 times

The same applies to any selection you make - you can reuse them any number of times as long as you don't close the image session. If I'm experimenting with different variations of my image like this, I usually save the image session (Save as session option in the File menu) so I can open the session again later and continue tweaking the image.

[dianaadler Profile]

Richard ... thank you ... I was able to edit the area after-the-fact. Very useful. Learned a lot about the 'select area' options.
I, too, would love to know about going back and re-choosing an entirely different sky (or selected area) after one has been chosen since re-cutting in the sky again would really be a pain.

[dianaadler Profile]

Just saw the answer ... yay ... brilliant.

[Richard Briggs Profile]

Wow, I have also learnt something today! And, of course, you can vary the opacity of, say, three sky effects and get a unique combination. How long have I been using SPE? 3? 4 years?

Richard