The Freehand Selection Tool

The freehand selection tool is another tool you will use very frequently whilst making tags:-

 

As you can see there are 4 settings for this tool. This tutorial will look at the two more commonly used, Freehand, and Point to Point.

The Freehand setting does exactly as it says, it lets you draw a freehand shape on your image. Open a new image, not too big and flood fill it with a colour or gradient of your choice. Then set the Freehand Tool to Freehand and draw something on your image:-

As you can see I'm not much of an artist, but you get the general idea. you can now do all sorts of things with the selection, e.g. flood fill it a different colour, add an effect to just that selection etc.

Now change your selection type to point to point, and copy and paste a tube of choice to your background. Now take your freehand tool set as follows:-

With your tool gradually move your tool around an area of your tube. Take a small section at a time to keep as close to the edge of your tube as you can. When you have the area selected that you want , right click to close off the selection.:-

Again you are now free to do what you wish with this selection, even delete it if wished.

When using this tool on complicated images, it's always worth zooming in so you can see the line you are working on more clearly.

The modes and feather work the same way with your freehand tool as they do with the magic wand and selection tools.

As you get used to using these tools you will find them far easier than you first imagine.

I hope you now have enough knowledge of the tools to be able to start using them in other tutorials.

 

If you have any queries on this tutorial please contact me.

 

This Tutorial was written in May 2010 by Helen Peachey, and the concept of the tutorial is copyrighted.
Please feel free to LINK to the tutorial and/or print it out for your personal use,
but please do not copy it in any way to put online, pass out or re-write without permission.
The image you create using this tutorial is for you to do what you wish except for monetary gains or for merchandising.
© Peachies Designs and Tutorials. Any Resemblance to another tutorial is purely coincidental.