As you know, the Options  Bar displays a number of different options depending on the Tool you are currently using.  All of the Selection Tools have a set of options, but some differ from others.  The Magnetic Lasso has the most.

Feather
Feathering  your Selection creates a gradual softening effect, from solid color to transparency, similar to how the feathers on a  bird’s wing gradually become transparent at the tips.  To examine the effects of feathering select the Elliptical Marquee Tool .  Before making a Selection of the top half of the statue, enter a value of 20 in the Feather field.  Make sure Anti-alias ed is checked.  Recall that Anti-aliasing softens the transition from the edge of an image or Selection to the color the edge is placed against.  Leave Style  at default, Normal.  Select the top half of the statue.  Select the Move Tool  and move your Selection toward the bottom of the image.  You’ll notice the area you’ve moved the image data from fills  with the current background color.  You’ll also notice how the background color gradually fades or feathers into the surrounding color.  Deselect your Selection.  Notice how the edges feather into the background as well, becoming transparent toward the edge.

The effects of Feathering

Lasso Width

Recall that the Magnetic Lasso searches for edges to attach to.  The Lasso Width defines the range of pixels within which the Tool will search for edges.  The range is limited to values from 1 to 40.

Frequency

Frequency determines how often the Magnetic Lasso creates anchor points along the Selection path.  Each anchor point acts effectively as a fresh start to edge detection, increasing accuracy.  The range is limited to values from 0 to 100.

Edge Contrast
Edge Contrast  adjusts the sensitivity of the Magnetic Lasso’s edge detection.  The range is limited to values from 1% to 100%.  Higher values require increased contrast between the edge you desire to select and the image data that surrounds it.  Experiment with the options to see how they affect the behavior of the Magnetic Lasso.

Magic Wand Tool
The Magic Wand  Tool  differs from the other Selection Tools in that rather than drawing a path yourself you simply {Click} the Magic Wand in the area you wish to select and the Magic Wand creates the Selection for you.  It creates the Selection based on a range of related colors.  The range of colors is set in the Options  Bar by adjusting the Tolerance setting.  Increasing the value increases the color range.

Make sure the fudog image is open and in its original state (you can reload the image or use the History Palette  to delete your modifications.)  Select the Magic Wand  Tool .  In the Options  Bar, set the Tolerance level to 20.  Uncheck Contiguous.  Now {Click} any area of the black background around the statue.  A Selection path is created that surrounds most of the background.  The color of the area that you clicked on becomes the base color that establishes the related color range, in this case shades of black.  However, it does not surround the entire area.  Deselect select the Selection.  Change the Tolerance to 30 and {Click} the statue again.  The Selection path should encompass the entirety of the black background that surrounds the statue.  Deselect the Selection again.

Check Contiguous and reselect the black background.  You’ll notice that the entire background is no longer selected.  Why?  Because the parts of the background that remain unselected are separated by colors currently outside of the range established by {Clicking} to create your Selection and establishing a tolerance level.  By checking Contiguous you force the Magic Wand  to select a color range that is uninterrupted by colors outside the range.  When Contiguous is unchecked, the Magic Wand selects all the areas that fall within its color range within the entire image.  The Use All Layers  feature is covered later.

The Pen Tool  

The Pen Tool  can also be used to create Selections .  We will be exploring the function of the Pen Tool in depth in a later chapter so, for the time being, suffice to say it can also be used to create very accurate selections.