1. If you needed to create a square selection, what selection tools would you use?

To make a square selection, use the Rectangular Marquee Tool at the upper left-hand side of the toolbox.  Drag the cursor from the upper left-hand corner to the lower right-hand corner of the area you wish to select.  After starting the drag, you can hold down the shift key to force the selection to be square-shaped. Finish the drag, before releasing the shift key.

2. What shape of selection does the Elliptical Marquee create?

The Elliptical Marquee Tool produces an elliptical-shaped selection.  Elliptical may be thought of as a specia case of oval.  Ellipsises have two axes of symmetry while ovals need only have one.  

3. What short-cut key would you use to form a perfect square or circle as you select?

When using the Rectangular (or Elliptical) Marquee Tool, one can make the selection a perfect square (or circle) by pressing down the shift key afterstarting the selection drag and completing the drag before releasing the shift key.   

4. If you have an image or graphic with a large area of blue pixels, what would be the easiest tool to use to select these same-colored pixels?

The Magic Wand Tool allows one to select areas with the same color.

5. True or False? The Magic Wand selects pixels based on edge-contrast. Why or why not?

False. The Magic Wand Tool selects pixels based on brightness in the three color channels Red, Green and Blue.  It's the Magnetic Lasso Tool the "looks" for edges.  

6. Explain the term 'Fixed Aspect Ratio' when working with Selections.

The aspect ratio of something is the relative size of its width compared to its height.  For instance,a monitor may have a number of resultion settings like 800x600, 1024x768, etc., but they all have the same aspect ratio of 4:3, meaning that if the width value is divided by the height value the result will be 4/3.  So if one uses the Fixed Aspect Ratio option of the select tool found under the Style drop-down list, then a width and height textbox appear.  One fills in numbers -- not of a specific width and height, but a ratio. So entering a 4 for width and a 3 for height will force one's selection to have the same aspect ratio as the monitor.  

7. If you have already created a selection and you want to add or subtract from the selection, what would you do?

If you hold down the shift key BEFORE dragging a new selection, it will add the new selection to the previous selection.

8. If you wanted to create a Fixed Size Rectangular Selection, where would you input your Width and Height values?

After clicking the selection tool in the toolbox, the Option Bar has a drop-down list title Style.  After choosing Fixed Aspect Ratio from the list, two textboxes appear labeled Width and Height for the user to enter the Width and Height of his/her desired aspect ratio.

9. While using the Magnetic Lasso, how and where would you control the value of the edge contrast so Photoshop snaps to the edges you need it to?

When the Magnetic Lasso tool is selected, the Option Bar has a textbox labeled Edge Contrast in which the user enters a percentage.  If the object and background have a strong contrast, then the user should enter a high number to avoid the tool "snapping" to undesired contrasts, whereas if the object and background have a weak contrast the edge contrast value may have to be lowered. 

10. I have an unsteady hand! What settings for the Magnetic Lasso can help me with this issue and why?

When the magnetic Lasso tool is selected, the option bar has a textbox labeled Width in which the user can enter a number of pixels that he or she expects to be from the edge to be selected.  A larger value here will allow one to stray farther from the desired edge and still be in gange to select it. 

11. Explain in detail what the 'Contiguous' setting affects when using the Magic Wand Tool.

The Magic Wand Tool makes a selection based on the color of the pixel or group of pixels surrounding the cursor when it is clicked.  It selects all of the regions within some "tolerance" of the chosen color.  If the Contiguous checkbox is not checked, then these selected areas maybe anywhere within the image (usually within one layer).  Consider if you were trying to eliminate a blue background from a portrait and the subject had blue eyes.  In this case the attempted selection of the background might also inadvertently select specks within the eyes.  If the contiguous checkbox is checked, that means that every pixel within the selection must have at least one neighbor that is selected and moreover that each selected pixel can the mapped back to the original pixel through its neighbors.  There will not be separate islands in the selections, just one big island.

12. What settings can help you achieve smoother and softer edges for selections?

The select tools have two options on the Option Bar that help one deal with the jagged edges that can occur because the object being selected is made up of pixels.  These are the Anti-alias checkbox and the Feather Textbox. Note that the anti-alias option is grayed out when the Rectangular Selection is being used; this is because the rectangular array of pixels can exactly accommodate a reactangular selection.

13. Explain the differences between Feather and Anti-Alias.

Suppose you were trying to represent an orange on a blue table -- thus a round edge separating blue and orange -- using pixels.  An "aliased" approach would determine whether the pixels near the edge were dominated by orange or by blue and choose the dominant one for the color of the pixel.  This results in a very jagged, pixelated edge. An anti-aliased approach would average the colors at the edge making the pixel a sort of brown-gray sometimes more toward orange, other times more toward blue.  I believe with a select tool the averaging is with a transparent background.  Anti-aliasing is limited to neighboring pixels.  Feathering uses a Gaussian distribution about the edge -- so that both inside and outside the edge some mixing occurs with a more even mixture occuring at the edge.  In Feathering one chooses a width.  This is not an absolute width in which the effect takes place, but more of an idea of a standard deviation of width, i.e. that most of the mixing takes places within the first standard deviation on either side of the edge.  Feathering provides a smoother transistion than anti-aliasing especially with a large width and can give the effect of the object being faded in.   

14. Describe two ways to activate the Feather command on a selection.

1. Enter a non-zero value in the Feather Textbox on the Option Bar when a selection tool is chosen from the Toolbox.
2. Go to the menu and click Select/Feather ... (or use its keyboard short-cut Alt+Ctrl+D).

15. True or False: You can check off the Anti-Alias check box before or after you've create a selection in order for it to take effect.

False. The Anti-alias option must be selected before the selection is made.

16. Describe three ways to access/execute Transformation commands for Selections.

1. On the menu, go to Edit/Free Transform or Edit/Transform and then select the particular type of transformation (e.g. rotation).
2. Use the Ctrl+T keyboard shortcut to access the Free Transform tool. 
3. Use the Move Tool with the Show Transform Control checkbox checked.
4. Right click on a selection and choose Transform from the context-sensitive menu.

17. What are some of the benefits of working with layers?

Layers allow one to isolate the elements that constitute one's image. This isolation allows one to easily manipulate the particular element without affecting any of the others.

18. How would you know which layer is currently active?

To see the curerntly active layer, look for the highlighted layer in the Layers palette.

19. What would you need to do to manipulate or move more than one layer at once?

One can select more than one layer in Photoshop CS2 by holding down the Control key as one clicks on various layers. Then if one were to use the Move tool, one would move the items (selected items?) in each layer. To make this association between the layers quasi-permanent, one can link the layers by clicking on the Link tool which looks like a chain and is at the bottom of the Layers palette. Now if one selects one of the linked layers and drags the element from the selected layer, the same affect is achieved. One can also group the layers by selecting the layers and on the menu clicking Layer/Group Layers (keyboard shortcut Ctrl+G). With the group (folder) highlighted, one can again move all of the elements together. 

20. How would you combine more than one layer together to obtain only one layer and minimize file size?

Select the desired layers, then go to the menu and click Layer/Merge Layers or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+E.

21. How do you arrange artwork on one layer to appear behind or in front of, artwork on another layer?

Within the Layer palette, the lower layers are behind the upper layers in the image file.  To move an element behind another, drag the layer associated with the first element and move it down layer by layer until it is lower than the second element's layer.

22. Describe in your own words what a Quick Mask is and how you can use it in your work.

If you make a selection, then you can edit the selected area, e.g. paint on it with the Brush tool.  But the difficulty can be in making precisely the selection that you want.  After making a rough selection, you can refine it by clicking on the Edit in Quick Mask Mode toward the bottom of the toolbox.  Then you can use the Brush tool to to add or substract from the selection. 

23. When working in Quick Mask Mode, what would you do to add to your present selection?

After making a selection and moving to the Edit in Quick Mask Mode, one can add to the selection (make it larger in area) by using the Brush tool.  The Color palette will come up in grayscale.  Make sure the Foreground is selected and change the color to white (or possibly light gray).  Then any brush work that occurs outside of the mask will add to the selection.  The gray can be used to achieve a feathering like effect as can certain brush choices.

24. Why would you want to preview your feathered selection using Quick Mask Mode?

When not in Quick Mask Mode, one is only shown an item/area if it is at least 50% selected.  So one may not see the selection at all if it is less than 50% or if one does see the selection one may not see how far it really extends.

25. Explain three ways to create Feathered selections when you are working with Quick Mask Mode.

1. If you are adding or subtracting from a mask with the Brush tool in Quick Mask Mode, then you can change features of the Brush Stroke such as its opacticity.  Reducing its opacity will make your additions or subtractions feathered.
2. Another way is the change the color (gray-scale value) of the brush.  While white adds and blck subtracts, gray can do a bit of both and provide a feathered effect.
3. Certain brush styles found under the Brush Preset picker (drop down arrow on the Option bar) are not solid but have a spatter or fading quality built in.  
4. You can apply a blur, such as a Gaussian blur, to the mask.  In Quick mask Mode, go to Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur ... on the menu.