Unlock The Full Power Of Basic Selections In Photoshop

Full Power Of Basic Selections: The "Subtract From Selection" Option

Before we see how the "Subtract From Selection" option works, let's first see where to access it. For that, we go back up to the Options Bar for another look at those four little icons. The "Subtract From Selection" icon is the third one from the left:

Now that we know where it is, let's see how to use it.

Sometimes when you're trying to select a complex shape, it's easier to select the entire shape first and then subtract from your selection. Let's use our shape again from the beginning of this tutorial:

The first time I selected this shape, I selected the bottom half first and then used the "Add To Selection" option to grab the remaining square section in the top right. This time, to show you how the "Subtract From Selection" option works, I'm going to start by selecting the entire shape. I'm going to use the Rectangular Marquee Tool once again, and I'll just drag a quick selection around the whole thing:

Looks good, except for one obvious problem. By dragging a selection around the entire shape, I've also selected that empty square section in the top left. Thanks to the "Subtract From Selection" option though, I can easily fix that.

Just as we saw with the "Add To Selection" option, the "Subtract From Selection" option has a handy keyboard shortcut so we don't have to keep selecting it from the Options Bar every time we need it. All you need to do is hold down the Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key, which places a little "minus sign" in the bottom right corner of your mouse cursor:

Using my Rectangular Marquee Tool and the "Subtract From Selection" option, I'm going to select that empty square section in the top left of the shape to remove it from my existing selection. Holding down my Alt/Option key, I'm going to start my selection from just outside the top left corner of my existing selection, and then I'm going to drag my mouse down and to the right until I've selected the entire empty area that I want to remove:

As with the "Add To Selection" option, you don't need to hold down the Alt/Option key the entire time you're dragging the selection. All you need to do is hold it down just before you start dragging, and then as soon as you've clicked your mouse button down, you can let go of the Alt/Option key.

Now that I've selected the part of the original selection that I want to remove, all I need to do is release my mouse button, and presto:

That empty section in the top left has now been removed from the original selection, leaving only my shape selected, thanks to the "Subtract From Selection" option.

Let's round out our look at the full power of basic selections in Photoshop with the final option, "Intersect With Selection".