Selecting the Parts For Touching-up With the Freehand Tool

We are going to use the photo shown in Figure 1 for this workshop. So start by copying the photo onto your computer.



Figure 1: A nice car, but the setting could do with some improvement.

You can use the Clone Brush tool without having to make a selection. However, a selection is useful for "protecting" those parts of the image that are not to be modified. Given that the Clone Brush tool is applied to several pixels, a selection will avoid any overlapping when you reach the edges of the parts to be modified.

1. Open the image in Paint Shop Pro.
   
   
For safety's sake ... Always keep the original copy of the image you are working on. To make a copy, use the Save As command in the File menu.


2. Click on the Freehand tool and select the post, as shown in Figure 2.
   
   
The selection should be quite large, but very accurate at the base of the post. Blow up the image using the Zoom function so that you can work on it under good conditions.



Figure 2: The selection should be quite accurate at the base of the post, so that the elements to be kept are not touched-up accidentally.