Advanced Selections: The Refine Edge Tool

Another useful selection feature is called the Refine Edge tool.

Having made your initial selection, if you click the Refine Edge button in the Options panel, you'll see the selection view mode change to a white background. You can change this to a red mask background, a black background, or several other working looks, depending on how complex the picture is and how you like to view your selection work (as we'll soon see).

Refine Edge panel (below): Use this panel to perfect any selection. As all images are individual this panel provides you with the tools to customize selection accuracy.

From the top of the panel - View Mode offers seven ways to see the selection while working on it (i.e. as a traditional line of marching ants, Black only, White only, Black and White, As a Layer, Overlay, etc).

Moving down to Edge Detection: This section controls the (pixel) width (and therefore the local nature...