Need clarification using the selection tool

Hi all,
I have some strange (to me) occurrences while using the 'selection tool'...
Explanation:
I'm using PSE11 on a Win 7 (64) PC.
What I want to do is to create a new pic from an existing pic. The existing pic's background is unsuitable for what I want. But the FG is what I need. I thought that selecting the FG object and placing it into a new pic would be what I needed using the <quick selection tool>.
To do this, I am trying to use the <quick selection tool>. I've had varying degrees of success using it. One main thing I don't understand & pretty much renders my task useless, is the fact that whenever I use <refine edge> so that I can refine my edge selection, my pic is immediately lost or taken away. Since I have no idea as to what's happening, I am forced to close the pic (W/O saving changes, of course) & then re-opening the pic. All's well until I use the <refine edge> button again, then, my pic disappears AGAIN!
There are a few more details about this <selection tool> that I'm muddy on. Is there something where I can read more about its use? I would love to know more, but how? Where?
I am not a constant user of PSE, rather, I only use it on occasions. Normally, I use its scanning features. I may play around with a few other features, but I also know that PSE offers many other powerful features, I rarely, if ever, use.

There are many selection tool and way to extract a subject. There are more way in Photoshop then in Photoshop Elements you should ask over in the Elements forum to get answers suitable for elements users. You may get answers here that are not possible to use in Elements. Photoshop Elements

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Need help using the selection tool

Hi all,
I have some strange (to me) occurrences while using the 'quick selection tool'...
Explanation
I'm using PS Elements 11 on a Win 7 (64) PC.
What I want to do is to create a new pic from an existing pic. The existing pic's background is unsuitable for what I want. But the FG is what I need. I thought that selecting the FG object and placing into a new pic would be what I needed using the <quick selection tool>.
To do this, I am trying to use the <quick selection tool>. I've had varying degrees of success using it. One main thing I don't understand & pretty much renders my project useless & undoable, is the fact that whenever I use <refine edge> so that I can refine my edge selection, my pic is immediately lost or taken away. Since I have no idea as to what's happening, I am forced to close the pic (W/O saving changes, of course) & then re-opening the pic. All's well until I click the <refine edge> button again, then, my pic disappears AGAIN!
My guess is that maybe the pic is somehow transformed to a layer or something. But, how can I turn this behavior off and not make my pic disappear??
There are a few more details about this <selection tool> that I'm muddy on. Is there something where I can read more about its use? I would love to know more, but how? Where?
I've now read the online manual part about selection tools. Although it shed some light, I'm still needing more.
I am not a constant user of PSE, rather, I only use it on occasions. Normally, I use its scanning features. I may play around with a few other features, but I also know that PSE offers many other powerful features, I rarely, if ever, use.

This is the Photoshop forum. You want the Photoshop Elements forum:
Photoshop Elements

Hi I just changed from cs3 to photoshop cc and cant locate the tools bar usually at the top? Need to use the ruler tool?

Hi I just changed from cs3 to photoshop cc and cant locate the tools bar usually at the top? Need to use the ruler tool?

What operating system are you using?
You don't see the tool options bar (Window>Options) or your looking for the Analysis Menu which is now under Image>Analysis?
You can also get select the ruler tool from the toolbox

In version 5, how do I use the selection tool to move objects?

I can use the selection tool to select objects, but when I try to drag it, nothing happens. My workaround is to use the selection tool to select an object, and then use the transform tool to drag the object into its new position. Any help is greatly appreciated.

is your object locked?
Message was edited by: lilia@
... or perhaps your clicking on the content grabber?

When I use the selection tool to move vector points and bend edges, I only see the change in wire frame.

When I use the selection tool to move vector points and bend edges, I only see the change in wire frame. Once I commit by letting go of the mouse button, the object does change. It just previews with a wire frame. I would like to see the preview change on the solid object. Is there a setting somewhere?
I sure hope I am explaining this for people to understand .
Thanks
Ed

Hi Ed,
What do you mean by wire frame??And are you using selection or sub-selection tool since you have mentioned about vector point I doubt if it is sub-selection tool.Could you please attach a video demonstrating the issue where we see the mismatch in the preview and the output, so that we can understand the problem better and try to resolve it.
Thanks,
Sangeeta

Is there a way to automatically resize the text box to fit the text inside, without using the selection tool to resize the corners in Illustrator and Photoshop?

I'm wondering if there is a way where I can quickly resize a text box to fit exactly around the text inside, so pretty much the smallest the text box can go without being too small to fit the text? I know you can do this manually with the selection tool, but is there a button/command that automatically does this in one go?
Thanks

Try this script. Save the page as .jsx the the "Presets>Scripts" AI folder. When you restart AI it will appear in the "Scripts" menu. Select the text block and run the script.
Thanks to Nathaniel Vaughn KELSO for the script.
http://kelsocartography.com/scripts/scripts/nvkelso/FitToTextContent_v2.jsx

Is there a way to automatically resize the text box to fit the text inside, without using the selection tool to resize the corners in Illustrator?

I'm wondering if there is a way where I can quickly resize a text box to fit exactly around the text inside, so pretty much the smallest the text box can go without being too small to fit the text? I know you can do this manually with the selection tool, but is there a button/command that automatically does this in one go?
Thanks

The short answer is No. But I see that Ray has given you an option.

In Muse, I cannot use the selection tool on the thumbnails without ALL of them changing shape. "Edit together" is not enabled and "Freeform thumbnails is. Very frustrating!

I can't disable the "Edit together" function in the thumbnail widget control panel. I can uncheck it, but my thumbnails all continue to edit together. What's the cure?

Hi Craig,
This is not possible to make thumbnails' different dimensions on a slideshow widget. Edit together works for formatting the thumbnails, not for re-sizing. You will need to use a composition widget if you need thumbnails of different sizes.
Please check this related discussion here, How can I create a Lightbox with varying Thumbnail sizes. e.g landscape, portrait etc?
- Abhishek Maurya

So what happens if I need to use the recovery tool, and dont have XP or Vis

Title pretty much says it all.
Message Edited by Immaculate on -6-200706:6 PM

Which model of the player do you have ? You could go to the Recovery Mode (no software needed) and then do a clean up and failing which do a format all. then start from fresh.
It is possible that you have songs in there without ID3 tags and thus it does not show up on the player.
Message Edited by eddy2099 on -22-200702:3 PM

When I use the selection tool it brings up large squares of selection inside my object i'm trying to select?

any ideas why this would happen?

Try resetting the tool by right clicking here. If that doesn't work, post a screen shot of the image showing the problem

How can I add to an existing path using the pencil tool?

This probably seems like a rather elementary question, but
whenever I draw a path using the pencil tool, reselect it,
hover over the endpoint, and the click and drag to extend
the line off into a different direction, Illustrator will often
(but not always) erase the existing path and leave only the
new one that I drew.
To wit:
In step 1 above, I draw a line with the Pencil tool.
In step 2 above, I reselect the line from step 1, hover over the endpoint, and then continue to draw further.
However, as can be seen in step 3, the line from step 1 disappears after I draw the new path.
I am aware of the pencil setting, "Edit selected paths", and I have checked it to edit selected paths
within 12 pixels for the above example. What I am doing in the above example, and what I
want to do, is to be able to add more paths onto an existing one using the pencil tool,
rather than have a completely new path being drawn every time I lift up my pen to finish
drawing the previous path.
I also realize that I can do this with the pen tool; but the pen tool is a more
precise tool (and somewhat more cumbersome), and I prefer to have more
of the rough-handed look from time to time.
Finally, I also know that I can use the direct selection tool to select endpoints
from two different paths and then join them using the join command;
but this seems to be more trouble than it's worth in many cases, especially
if I want to do it frequently for a more long and complicated line.
Am I expecting too much out of Illustrator?
Is my idea of how to use the existing tools wrong in this case?
Is there some piece of knowledge I'm missing?
I'm on Illustrator CS5, Mac OS X 10.6.8, using a Wacom Intuos4 tablet.
However, I have confirmed the above on Illustrator CS4 for Mac as well.
Any help or comments would be much appreciated.
Jeff

Thanks @rcraighead - the Live Paint process seems a bit overkill for simply adding
a new path onto an existing pencil path, but I did try the first idea you suggested,
which was tracing a bit over the last part of the existing path and then continuing
on to extend the path. It's a bit imprecise because the existing path gets slightly
modified, but it seems to work pretty well all in all. Nice idea indeed - thanks a million.
I also found that in AI CS5, I can use the selection tool to select all of the paths
in this case and then join them using the join command. I thought I needed to
select individual anchor points for this to work, but it actually works really
well, better than I thought. I seem to recall that previous versions of Illustrator
were a lot more picky with the Join command, but then again this might just
have been my lack of understanding.
I'm curious to know what other solutions to the above problem that other users
might have, so I will leave this question unanswered for a bit...
but I will use your initial technique described - it seems to work
pretty well, in absence of other options Many thanks again for your timely help.
Jeff

How to use the mesh tool

I am not sure how to use the mesh tool

it can be tricky! it's best to use with geometric shapes and not random figures that you create with the pen or brush tools.
so lets say you wanted to make an apple using a real picture for reference. first off, you'd place the picture of the real apple in the background. next, you would choose the circle tool to create a circle around the apple. then, you would use the mesh tool and press the center anchor to create a simple grid looking form onto the circle. grab the selection tool to move around the anchor points surrounding the apple to make a more accurate outline. after this step, it's easier to add more anchor points for the actual apple! all you must do is grab the pen tool and add more anchor points along the path and use the selection tool to move the anchor points around the apple; eventually it'll look somewhat like a 3D graph of an apple. important tip to remember, the less lines the better. but a few are okay.
so after you've graphed/mapped out your apple you're going to want to press the selection tool and use your eyedropper tool to get an accurate color of the spot/anchor you selected. the basic point of the mesh tool is to outline a picture,@ and with the eyedropper tool you can use the exact colors from the original picture you're working from. i learned this technique from class. here's my example it can be a really useful tool if it's what you're looking for.

Could not use the move tool because no layers are selected.

This problem started a few days ago. I like to hold down the "Shift" key when moving a layer (either text or image) to keep the horizontal spacing locked. It was never a problem but a dialog box is now popping up with the following note: Could not use the move tool because no layers are selected.
There's no problem if I'm not holding the "Shift" key but I can't keep the layer from moving up or down. I could just use the arrow key but sometimes I need to move the layer quite a distance.
Also, I'm noticing that if I don't have the cursor directly on the type/image layer, regardless of whether the "Shift" key is selected, a rectangle similar to when the "Rectangular Marquee Tool" is used appears and the layer I had selected is no longer selected.
Any ideas as to why this might be happening? Thanks for the help.

Sorry about that. I'm using Photoshop CS4. There are no layer masks and I'm working over a solid white background (although it's happening in all my files, some of which have multiple layers).
I'm mainly designing DVD sleeves, posters, invites, etc. The layers contain images, live text, vector smart objects, etc. and the problem is happening with all layers, regardless of what it is (text or image).
When I have the mouse directly over whatever it is I want to move and hold the shift key I get the "Could not use..." dialog box. When the mouse is NOT over the image/text, but I have the correct layer selected, I get the "Rectangular Marquee Tool" look, a "dashed" rectangular box wherever I've moved the mouse.
Hope the info is helpful and thanks for responding...

In expert mode, using the mover tool, I can not move one picture into another. Need help as I get error message

I have two pictures in expert mode in editor. I go to "Move tool", click on picture but I am unable to move and drop in second picture. I do not get the dashed lines around the picture, and if I move cursor to
move picture, I get the following message " This operation cannot be performed on the locked background layer. Do you want to convert the locked background layer into an editable layer?" I have no idea
what I need to check or uncheck to make it work., I am following a lesson plan in a "Infinite Skills" training course. I talked to them, but was unable to come up with a answer. Help, please I have been
trying to do this move for over a week. tks rdf

We don't know whether this tutorial was written for Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, more specifically for which version of PSE. There are differences. Be sure to have the layers palette open.
Try this instead
Open picture B, the one you wish to select something from to add to another picture.
Use one of the selection tools, e.g. selection brush, lasso tool, to select the object. You will see an outline ("marching ants") once the selection is complete
Go to Edit menu>copy to copy the selection to the clipboard
Open picture A, then go to Edit>paste
Use the move tool to position object from picture B.
In the layers palette you should see picture A as the background layer, and object B on a separate layer.
To unlock the background layer, double click on it in the layers palette. Perhaps your tutorial will guide you through the process.

When I use the scissors tool to create a segment of a track, select the segment and bounce it, about 15-20 seconds of silence is added to the beginning of the resulting segment. What causes this?

When I use the scissors tool to create a segment of a track, select the segment and bounce it, about 15-20 seconds of silence is added to the beginning of the bounce. What causes this?

Thanks for the replies. I reviewed them shortly after they were submitted but I'm also working on other projects at the same time (hence the delayed reply).
Building a time table and doing a cross join to my original resultset gave me the desired resultset of the months assigned between dates. What I can't figure out now is how to filter months I don't want.
Doing a cross join between my original resultset that had two dates:
08/27/2010
10/24/2011
and a calendar table that has 24 rows (each month for a two year period)
my new resultset looks like this:
I need to filter the rows in yellow as the months assigned for stage 3 that started on 8/27/2010 should stop when the patient was assigned to stage 4 on 10/24/2011.
You'll notice that Jan - Sept 2011 isn't listed for Stage 4 assigned on 10/24/2011 as I included a filter in the WHERE clause that states
the Months Assigned value must be greater than or equal to the date assigned value.
Any advice would be appreciated.

Need clarification using the selection tool

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