How to Deselect in Photoshop & Tips to Use Photoshop with Shortcuts

– How to Deselect in Photoshop –

Photoshop has a variety of tools designed to allow you to select objects, including the Polygonal Lasso, Magic Wand, and Rectangular Marquee tools.

How to deselect in Photoshop

Each and every one of these tools is easily accessible through the main Photoshop toolbar.

How to deselect objects is less obvious and not very noticeable. You can deselect objects by clicking menu items with your mouse or by using key combinations on your computer’s keyboard.

Selecting and deselecting portions of a layer is an essential part of using Photoshop effectively.

While even a novice can quickly figure out how to perform some selections and deselect them when done, there are actually some less obvious methods for deselecting, hiding, and saving selections in Photoshop CC.

The Selection Tools

The unique lines identify Photoshop selections, resembling marching ants, that surround the pixels. You can use various tools in the Toolbox and options under the Selection menu to make selections. Some of these include:

  • Lasso Tools
  • Marquee Tools
  • Quick Selection Tool
  • Magic Wand Tool
  • Color Range
  • Focus Area

Pressing Ctrl-A selects all. Ctrl-clicking a layer Thumbnail selects a layer.

Deselecting and Reselecting

To deselect a selection, press Ctrl-D on a Windows keyboard or Cmd-D on a Mac. Alternatively, click the Select menu and click Deselect.

Click anywhere outside of the selected area using any tool that’s also able to make a selection, like a Lasso Tool or a Marquee Tool. To re-select, the last selection you made, click Reselect under the Select menu, or press Shift-Ctrl-D.

Hiding a Selection

To hide a selection without deselecting it, click Extras under the View menu, or press Ctrl-H. Repeat either action to make the selection visible again.

Saving a Selection

To save a selection, click Save Selection from the Select menu. This saves the selection as an Alpha Channel, which you can see at any time in the Channels panel.

To use the selection again, click Load Selection under the Select menu and then choose the selection by its saved name.

This is a useful feature if it’s taken a lot of time to select an area — such as tracing complicated edges with the Lasso Tool — or if you plan to select and deselect several different areas in the same project.

With Your Mouse

  1. Click the window containing the selection you’d like to deselect to ensure it’s active. They surround selected objects in dotted or dashed lines.
  2. Click “Select” on the main Photoshop menu. A drop-down menu appears.
  3. Click “Deselect” on the drop-down menu. All active selection areas are deactivated.

With Your Keyboard

  1. Click the window containing the active selection you want to deselect.
  2. Press and hold the “Control” key on your keyboard.
  3. Press the “D” key on your keyboard while continuing to hold down the “Control” key. All active selection areas are deselected.

Tip

On a Mac, use the “Command” key rather than the “Control” key when performing deselection procedures using your keyboard.

Warning

If you accidentally deselect something, reselect it by clicking “Select” on the main Photoshop menu and then clicking “Reselect” from the drop-down menu that appears.

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Deselecting a Layer

How to deselect Layers in Photoshop

Now we know how to deselect an actual selection, you may be wondering how to do a similar thing with a layer.

As you’d expect from such a tutorial, it’s equally as easy as the first part. So with your layer selected, all you want to do is go to Select > Deselect Layers.

There we have it! You have deselected your layer. It will also work if you have multiple layers selected and you want to deselect all of them in Photoshop.

Now you’ve learned how to deselect in photoshop, why not go and grab some free stock photos from Adobe Stock? At the moment they are allowing you to download 10 for Free to use in your creative design projects.

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Making and Adjusting Selections in Photoshop

Mastering selections is a key skill for becoming a Photoshop CS6 master. Here are a few basic Photoshop keyboard shortcuts to get you started on digital photography projects of all sorts:

Task Shortcut (Windows) Shortcut (Mac)
Draw straight lines. Alt-click with Lasso tool Option-click with Lasso tool
Add to the selection outline. Shift-drag Shift-drag
Deselect from the selection area. Alt-drag Option-drag
Deselect all but the intersected area. Hold down Shift+Alt and drag Hold down Shift+Option and drag
Deselect the entire image. Ctrl+D Command+D
Reselect the last selection. Ctrl+Shift+D Command+Shift+D
Hide extras. Ctrl+H Command+H
Fill the selection with the foreground color. Alt+Backspace Option+Delete
Fill the selection with the background color. Ctrl+Backspace Command+Delete
Reapply the last filter. Ctrl+F Command+F
Adjust levels. Ctrl+L Command+L
Use Free Transform. Ctrl+T Command+T

Wrapping it up!

How to Deselect in Photoshop

Ok, so that’s a wrap!, how to deselect in Photoshop, a few different ways that you can achieve this in Adobe Photoshop.

It may be an incredibly simple tutorial, but it’s such a valuable skill to have when using this piece of software, especially when you’re a beginner and just learning.

There is never a time that isn’t right to help. If this information was useful to you, do well to share it with friends and loved ones. It’s your turn to help other people. You can share this article on your favorite social media handle.

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