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Selection saved in one document and used to create
an object in a new document. Note that the feathering in the original
selection was saved.
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Now that you have worked so hard on your selection, you should save
it. We spend more time in a raster program creating selections than
any other task, but once you click off, that's it ... gone forever.
How can you create the exact selection again, especially once you have
added texture to a selection, which generally makes selections much
tougher? Both of these problems can be solved by saving your selections.
You have two ways to save a selection in PSP. The first saves it with
the document. You save your selection as an Alpha Channel, which then
becomes a permanent part of your file.
You can also save the selection as a file, which is a great way to
share a particularly valuable selection with any document, or even share
it with a friend.
To save a selection with the document, create your selection and make
it perfect. Choose Selections>Save to Alpha Channel from the main
menu. The first screen that appears lists all the Alpha Channels you
have in your document and defaults to a New Channel. Click OK and a
new pop-up appears. Give your alpha channel a meaningful name, and your
selection is saved.
Load a saved channel
To bring the selection back, you must have the document containing the
channel open. You can use saved channels from other open documents.
Choose Selections>Load from Alpha Channel and choose the correct
selection. That's it. You can use the selection over and over and over.
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Save your selection as you save any other file for
easy access at any time.
Load your selection from any folder.
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Saving a selection to disk
Saving to an alpha channel is fine, but what if you would like to have
access to the selection, even when the original document is not available,
or you would like to send a selection to a coworker or friend? You can
easily save your selection as a file that is completely independent
of the document and can be used by PSP users anywhere.
Choose Selections>Save to Disk. The regular windows folder window
will open and you can save your selection to any folder. Give your file
a meaningful name, and PSP will apply the extension .sel when you save
it. This extension will be recognized by PSP as a selection no matter
when you use it.
If you have saved a selection as an alpha channel, and decide that
you would prefer to have it as a separate file, simply load the alpha
selection back into the original document and save the selection to
disk as described here. There is no association between the alpha selection
function and the save to disk function, so you can safely save to both.
Load a selection from disk
To retrieve the saved selection, simply choose Selections>Load from
Disk. Navigate to where you have your selections saved (I suggest naming
a folder in the PSP directory for your selections) and select the file.
That's it! Your selection is back into the current document.
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And that looks after the basics of selections in Paint Shop Pro. Your
success rate with PSP documents is completely related to your skill
with selections, so this is an area well worth serious study. But have
some fun. The freedom you gain from expertise with selections will let
you attempt effects you would never have dreamed about without the skill.
Make sure that you also study Masks are
Easy, Really!, a two-part series on masks, which are simply selections
in a sophisticated form.
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