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CHAPTER 5 SELECTION 201 Channel to Selection is the simplest operation: just replace any existing selection with the selection saved in the channel. But you can also use the other selection modes: Add to Selection, Subtract from Selection, and Intersect with Selection. They let you combine several selections in fairly complex ways. Of course, you can also make a copy (Duplicate Channel) or Delete Channel. You can also make a New Channel. By default, it will be all black (which will appear as a gray overlay), and then you can paint on it. In Figure 5-34, I ve scribbled on the biplane s fuselage with the Paintbrush tool and a large brush. Figure 5-34. Painting on a new channel The first item in the context menu, Edit Channel Attributes, gives you another place to change the channel s name. In addition, it lets you change the Fill Opacity (Figure 5-35). On some images, it may be nearly impossible to see what you re doing when the image is covered by the translucent dark gray of a channel. Changing Fill Opacity can make the overlay lighter or darker. You can also change the color by clicking on the color box. Figure 5-36 shows the result. Channels don t get in your way because you can switch them off at any time. They won t disturb your current selection until you explicitly ask for that using the context menu. Of course, channels are included when you save as XCF, so all your stored selections will still be there the next time you edit the image.
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200 CHAPTER 5 SELECTION Figure 5-32. Two selections saved (and renamed) To convert a saved selection channel back to an active selection, right-click on the channel to get a context menu (Figure 5-33). Figure 5-33. The Channel dialog s context menu
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CHAPTER 5 SELECTION 199 Figure 5-31. The selection is now saved as a channel. Notice that the selection channel doesn t have its visibility button turned on by default it s invisible. You can show it by clicking in the spot where the eye would be. The channel will appear as a translucent overlay, like the QuickMask, except it will be dark gray, not red. (You can change the color with Channel Attributes, as you ll see.) Like the QuickMask, you can paint on a channel using the normal drawing and filling tools, with a few caveats: A channel must be visible (have an eye ) in order to paint on it. If you still have a selection active, you won t be able to paint outside the selection. If you convert a selection to a channel, and then paint on it, you ll want to do Select . None. You can save as many selection channels as you wish. You can rename channels in the same way that you rename layers: double-click on its name in the channel dialog and type in a new one. Once you ve saved a selection, you can make another selection and save that, too (Figure 5-32). The small preview in the Channels dialog will give you an idea of what each selection channel looks like.
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198 CHAPTER 5 SELECTION Channel masks are black-and-white images (similar to the QuickMask) that represent some aspect of an image. To work with channel masks, you need the Channels dialog, usually docked as a tab between Layers and Paths (Figure 5-30). Figure 5-30. The Channels dialog Notice that there are three channels already there, for the three colors in an RGB image: Red, Green, and Blue. If your image has transparency, there will also be a channel for Alpha. Each channel has a visibility button next to it, just like layers do. Click on the eyeballs to turn off individual colors and watch what happens to the image. But you won t be using color channels now (for more on color manipulation, see Chapter . Instead, you ll be creating a special channel to hold the selection. Note If you view the Channels dialog when you have the QuickMask active, you ll see that the QuickMask is also a channel. To save a selection as a channel, use Edit . Save to Channel (Figure 5-31).
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CHAPTER 5 SELECTION 197 Tip You ll probably want to make the selection invisible with View . Show Selection. Then you can make sure the boundary between the flower and the background isn t too obvious. If you can see a line at the selection boundary, or the object looks like it has a halo around it, you probably need to feather the selection more. Figure 5-29. Use Curves to dim the bright background. Using Channel Masks to Save a Selection Sometimes it would be really nice to be able to save a selection. Perhaps you have a selection you ve spent a lot of time refining, but you temporarily need to make another selection somewhere else in the image. Or maybe you ve made a selection in one image, but you want to be able to use that selection in another related image. Of course, you can convert the selection to a path, and give the path a name. But a path won t store all the information about your selection: if you ve spent oodles of time feathering the edges just right, converting to a path will forfeit all that work. The answer is a channel mask.
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196 CHAPTER 5 SELECTION Highlighting Foreground Objects What can you do with a selection, besides copying it and pasting it somewhere? Pretty much anything, as it turns out. Nearly all of the GIMP s operations will operate only on the selection, if one exists. For instance, GIMP s brightness tools, discussed in Chapter 2, will lighten or darken only the selected part of an image. Figure 5-28 has a background that distracts from the flower in the foreground. Can GIMP de-emphasize the clutter to make the subject stand out more? Figure 5-28. Nice flower, distracting background First, select the flower using any combination of the techniques already discussed. Select by Color gets most of it, and correcting with the QuickMask fills in the rest. Then invert the selection: since the goal is to change the background, you want the background selected, not the flower. Now bring up your favorite brightness tool. In this case, Curves is particularly helpful, because it lets you reduce the brightness of the white wall with respect to the green leaves (Figure 5-29). After darkening the background, you may also want to try blurring it a bit with Gaussian Blur (see the section in Chapter 6 on Gaussian Blur for more details).
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CHAPTER 5 SELECTION 195 Figure 5-26. The QuickMask is finished, and ready to be turned back into a selection by pressing the QuickMask button again. Then you can Copy and Paste as New (Figure 5-27), or use your selection any way you choose. Figure 5-27. The object selected with the QuickMask is now pasted as a new image.
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194 CHAPTER 5 SELECTION Use short strokes. That way, if you draw somewhere you didn t intend to, Undo will correct the mistake without losing much. Remember, when you paint on the QuickMask, use black for areas you don t want selected. For areas you do want selected, use white or the eraser (assuming your background color is white). Using gray, or any other color, will only darken the QuickMask partially: the area will be partially selected. You might think you can t select areas and fill them after all, the QuickMask defines an existing selection! If you make a new selection, won t that destroy the one you re trying to refine? Fortunately, GIMP lets you make selections and fill them while you re painting in QuickMask mode. So go ahead and use the drawing techniques you learned in Chapter 4, including making shapes to be filled with black or white (Figure 5-25). Figure 5-25. Use the QuickMask to fill in gaps. Tip It often helps to use a drawing tool such as the Paintbrush to outline an area, and then use Free Select to fill the remaining real estate. That way, you can fill large areas quickly using only crude Free Select strokes. Figure 5-26 shows a free selection about to be filled. Continue painting, switching tools as needed to cover areas and fill gaps until you re happy with the result (Figure 5-26). Then click on the QuickMask button to return to the normal view.
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CHAPTER 5 SELECTION 193 Figure 5-23. The QuickMask view of the biplane Lasso selection If you want a feathered selection (which is usually best for selecting an object out of a photograph), use a fuzzy brush. For a sharp-edged selection, stick to a sharp-edged brush. The size of the brush you choose will depend on the size of your image and the complexity of your subject. Then start painting! (Figure 5-24.) Shift-clicking to draw straight lines will come in handy here. Figure 5-24. Painting on the QuickMask with the Paintbrush tool
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192 CHAPTER 5 SELECTION Figure 5-22. The QuickMask button. A rough selection of the biplane has already been made with Free Select. Note Areas that are partially selected (such as the edges of a feathered selection) will have some red, but the mask will be more transparent than usual. This is not always easy to see, particularly on color images which themselves have red; but it still gives you a better idea than the marching ants would. You can make the QuickMask use a different color by right-clicking on the QuickMask button and choosing Configure Color and Opacity. So how do you use the QuickMask? It s often best to use some other tool to make an approximate selection, and then use the QuickMask to clean it up. For instance, I ll select the biplane, which you may remember from the animation back in Chapter 3. I ll begin by making a quick outline with the Free Select tool, as Figure 5-22 shows. My selection isn t very accurate; I just want something approximate. Now press the QuickMask button. The marching ants disappear, and everything that wasn t selected before is overlain with a translucent red mask (Figure 5-23). Notice that the appearance of the button has changed, to show you that you re in QuickMask mode. Press the button again, and you ll go back to seeing the marching ants. When it s time to draw on the QuickMask, Rule 1 is the same as for paths: Zoom in! You want to be able to see individual pixels, so you can paint precisely even if your hand isn t that steady.
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