Adding To The Initial Selection

To inspect the selection outline for any problem areas, it usually helps to be zoomed in on the image. To zoom in, press and hold Ctrl+spacebar (Win) / Command+spacebar (Mac) to temporarily switch to Photoshop's Zoom Tool, then click inside the document window once or twice to zoom in (to zoom back out later, press and hold Alt+spacebar (Win) / Option-spacebar (Mac) and click inside the document window). Once you've zoomed in, hold down your spacebar by itself to temporarily switch to the Hand Tool, then click and drag the image along the selection outline to look for problems.

Here, I've come across an area where I missed the edge of the person's hand:

No need to start all over again. I can easily fix this by simply adding to the existing selection. Make sure you still have the Lasso Tool selected, then to add to a selection, hold down your Shift key. You'll see a small plus sign (+) appear in the bottom right of the cursor icon, letting you know that you're now in Add to Selection mode. With the Shift key held down, click somewhere inside of the existing selection, then drag outside of it and along the edge of the area you want to add. When you're done adding the new area, drag back inside of the existing selection:

Drag back to the spot where you initially clicked, then release your mouse button to finish. The area of the person's hand that I missed initially has now been added:

There's no need to continue holding down your Shift key the whole time you're adding to a selection. Once you've started dragging your mouse, you can safely release the Shift key. You'll stay in Add to Selection mode until you release your mouse button.

Subtracting From The Initial Selection

I'll continue scrolling along my selection outline looking for problems, and here I've come across the exact opposite problem from what I had a moment ago. This time, I selected too much of the image around the person's finger:

No worries though, since we can remove parts of a selection just as easily as we can add to them. To remove an unwanted area from a selection, hold down your Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key. This will place you in Subtract from Selection mode, and you'll see a small minus sign (-) appear in the bottom right corner of the cursor icon. With the Alt / Option key held down, simply click anywhere outside of the existing selection to set a starting point, then drag inside the selection and along the edge of the area you want to remove. In my case, I'm going to drag along the edge of the finger. When you're done, drag back outside of the existing selection:

Drag back to the spot where you first clicked, then release your mouse button to finish. The unwanted area around the person's finger has now been removed:

Again, there's no need to hold your Alt / Option key down the entire time. You can safely release the key once you've started dragging. You'll remain in Subtract from Selection mode until you release your mouse button.

Once I've scrolled all around the selection outline fixing problems by adding or removing parts as needed, my final selection with the Lasso Tool is complete:

With the handshake now selected, I'll press Ctrl+C (Win) / Command+C (Mac) to quickly copy the selected area, then I'll open up a second image in Photoshop and press Ctrl+V (Win) / Command+V (Mac) to paste the handshake into the new photo, repositioning it as needed:

Removing A Selection

When you're done with a selection created with the Lasso Tool, you can remove it by going up to the Select menu at the top of the screen and choosing Deselect, or you can press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+D (Win) / Command+D (Mac). You can also simply click anywhere inside of the document with the Lasso Tool.

As we've seen, Photoshop's Lasso Tool is an incredibly easy tool to use, and while it may not qualify as a professional-level selection tool, the ability to go back and fix problems with the initial selection can really help to improve your results. Up next, we'll look at the second of the three lasso tools, the Polygonal Lasso Tool!

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