Photoshop How To

Adobe recently updated Photoshop with several exciting features and tools, and the new Selection Brush is one of the most powerful for processing landscape shots and other outdoor images. This 12-minute tutorial from the Rogala Photography YouTube channel showcases the enhanced selection capabilities of this versatile tool so you can take advantage of everything it can do.

Mike is a professional landscape photographer and post-processing expert who kicks off today's episode like this: "This amazing Selection Brush adds to all the other options you have for selecting objects in Photoshop," and he urges you to update to Photoshop 2024 if you haven't done so already.

After running the update and opening Photoshop you'll be presented with a screen that lists whatever new tools are available. At the bottom of this window you'll be asked to choose one of three options, and Rogala explains why he recommends clicking the first tab labeled "Create new tool group and keep custom toolbar."

There's no need to worry if the new Selection Brush isn't immediately visible in the workspace. The simple solution is to use the "Edit toolbar" option to update your preferences.  Then you can click-and-drag the new brush so it's grouped along with the selection tools that are already in place.

Now that everything is properly configured, Mike moves on to practical examples for enhancing images with the new Selection Brush. In some ways it works like other brushes you've used to paint over specific portion of a shot. You'll learn how to pick whatever color you want to identify the selection as you work. Rogala explains why you shouldn't pick a color you work with frequently, like red, green or blue.

Despite the initial similarity between this tool and other brushes with you're familiar, the Selection Brush offers numerous advanced features for accomplishing common tasks. As you'll see, the enhanced selection capabilities are both numerous and effective.

We'll let Mike illustrate the details and the wide array of simple options so you can start using this amazing new tool today. Once the video concludes we suggest visiting the Rogala Photography YouTube channel where there's much more to learn.

And speaking of powerful Photoshop features, but sure to check out another tutorial we posted that demonstrates how to dramatically improve the impact of landscape photographs by enhancing "scale" with the software's game-changing Transform tools.